Vincent created portraits for various reasons, driven primarily by his desire to depict the fundamental nature of the human spirit. Through his portraits, he aimed to convey the emotions, struggles, and inner thoughts of his subjects to the outside world, serving as a testament to his profound empathy and understanding of the human condition.
His portraits depict everyday people. Often, his subject didn’t approve of their portrait, perhaps they were hoping for a Da Vinci likeness, or as Vincent himself put it: “the highly praised but so unspeakably, hopelessly dry technique of the Italians and Spaniards. Image makers! — what Jacque said, I often think about it”. Vincent had quoted Gustave Jean Jacquet referring to the French Neoclassical painter, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres whose lifelike paintings resembled photographs.