During his first year at Cormon's, Russell studied alongside the likes of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Émile Bernard. In 1886, they were joined by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, who quickly developed a reputation at the school for his intense and eccentric nature. While some of the French students shunned Van Gogh, Russell "took him under his wing" and built a rapport with the Dutchman. Their shared status as non-French outsiders at the school helped strengthen their bond, and they were also older than the average student, Van Gogh being 33 years old in 1886 and Russell 28. As such, they shared an allegiance to an older generation of artists, especially the French painter of peasant farmers, Jean-François Millet, and had a common belief in "the individual and his powers of expression, and an instinctive detachment from the life of the metropolis". Van Gogh, in a letter to his brother Theo, wrote admirably of Russell as "a countryman at heart" with "much gravity and strength" and "a certain sweetness of far-off fields". Regarded by Parisians as an archetypal "wild Australian", Russell had an "independence of spirit" that, Joanna Mendelssohn speculates, helped shape his and Van Gogh's friendship.Mendelssohn, Joanna (23 July 2018). "From Monet to Rodin, John Russell: Australia’s French Impressionist maps artistic connections", The Conversation. Retrieved 15 August 2018. In November 1886, Van Gogh agreed to sit for a portrait by Russell.
