With the development of photography, painters and artists turned to conveying the feeling and ideas behind people, places, and things rather than trying to imitate their physical forms.

Vincent van Gogh implemented this ideology to pursue his goal of depicting his own feelings toward and involvement with his subjects.

He wrote to his brother, Theo while studying in The Hague, "I want to do a drawing that not quite everybody will understand, the figure simplified to the essentials, with a deliberate disregard of those details that do not belong to the actual character and are merely accidental."

[1] Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in November 1882 that he had drawn a portrait of Jozef Blok (F993), a street bookseller who was sometimes called "Binnenhof's outdoor librarian".

In November 1882, Van Gogh began drawings of individuals to depict a range of character types from the working class.

[2] The "peasant genre" that greatly influenced Van Gogh began in the 1840s with the works of Jean-François Millet, Jules Breton, and others.

[3] Van Gogh held laborers up to a high standard of how dedicatedly he should approach painting, "One must undertake with confidence, with a certain assurance that one is doing a reasonable thing, like the farmer who drives his plow... (one who) drags the harrow behind himself.

[5] So thoroughly engaged in living the peasant lifestyle, his appearance and manner of speech began to separate himself from others, but this was a cost he believed he needed to bear for his artistic development.

[7] Van Gogh made a series of paintings of Sien Hoornik, a prostitute whom he met and took in when he lived at The Hague.

[citation needed] Van Gogh occasionally visited Café du Tambourin run by Agostina Segatori, the subject of this painting.

Van Gogh creates his own style of brushstroke from Impressionism and Pointillism, in this case a "criss-cross of overlapping nervous hatching.

The last and most advanced in style, skill and color reflects integration of Japanese, Impressionist, and other influences of the Parisian artist community.

[citation needed] Van Gogh went to Arles for the sun, color and country lifestyle but more than anything else "what I really hope to do is paint a good portrait.

But the doctor refused the gift, so Van Gogh offered the painting to the pharmacist of the hospital just passing by, a Mr Rousseau.

Retreating from the city, he hoped that his time in Arles would evoke in his work the simple, yet dramatic expression of Japanese art.

A half-length portrait was made of the tanned man with bright colors he called a "savage combination of incongruous tones".

The Zouave's uniform was blue with red-orange braids, a red cap and two yellow stars on his chest, all placed against the background of a green door and orange bricks.

[22] Paul-Eugène Milliet was a 2nd Lieutenant at the 3rd Zouave Regiment which had quarters at the Caserne Calvin located on Boulevard des Lices in Arles.

On his return to Arles, at the end of September 1888, Milliet handed over a batch of Ukiyo-e woodcuts and other prints selected by Vincent's brother Theo from their collection.

Van Gogh used sweeping brushstrokes in the painting made with green in the background, the man's coat and touches in his face.

In September 1888, Van Gogh, answering to a letter of his sister Wil who had told him of a recent photograph of their mother, asked for a print.

[29] About a week later he received it, but "troubled by the black," sat down to paint a copy based on this likeness:[30] Van Gogh's initial introduction to art was through his mother, an amateur artist.

After years of strained relationship with family members, Van Gogh excitedly shared some of his works his mother would cherish most, those of flowers and natural settings.

"[32] The Roulin Family is group of portrait paintings that Vincent van Gogh executed in Arles in 1888 and 1889 of Joseph, his wife Augustine and their three children: Armand, Camille and Marcelle.

The family, with children ranging in age from four months to seventeen years, also gave him the opportunity to produces works of individuals in several different stages of life.

Rather than making photographic-like works, Van Gogh used his imagination, colors and themes artistically and creatively to evoke desired emotions from the audience.

Roulin's “silent gravity and tenderness,” and his “strangely pure and touching” voice inspired Van Gogh to paint him, commemorating their friendship.

[35] Van Gogh labeled the group of work La Berceuse meaning "our lullaby or the woman rocking the cradle.

[citation needed] Patience Escalier was a gardener and a shephard by trade, and his portrait the result of Van Gogh's desire to paint an older peasant who resembled his father in features.

François Trabuc had a look of "contemplative calm" which van Gogh found interesting in spite of the misery he had witness at Saint-Paul and a Marseilles hospital during outbreaks of cholera.