Although Vincent and Theo had discussed the future possibility
of living together in Paris, Theo's answers had been somewhat vague and
evasive, prompting a desperate, exhausted, and sick Vincent to arrive
in Paris unannounced in March 1886. He sent a letter to Theo by
messenger apologizing for the surprise and telling Theo to meet
him at the Louvre. In June the brothers moved in together, renting
a spacious apartment with a studio in Montmartre. In April 1886
Vincent began working in the studio of the painter Fernand Cormon
as he had intended to do when in Antwerp, and this apprenticeship
allowed him to meet the painters John Russell, Louis Antequin,
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Emile Bernard, who became one of
Vincent's dearest friends. Goupil and Company having been dissolved,
Theo had begun to work for the firm's successor, Boussod, Valadon,
and Company. Through Theo's work selling Barbizon School Realist
and Impressionist work, Vincent was able to see the avant-garde
painting about which he had heard so much, and he even had the
opportunity to meet many members of the central Impressionist circle
of Paris, including Monet, Degas, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, and
Aragon. In May, Vincent saw the eighth Impressionist exhibit, where
he was struck especially by the Symbolist work of Gauguin and Seurat's
neo-Impressionism, also known as Pointillism. Although he was still
an outsider because of his non-French nationality, his unallied
work, and his unpredictable bipolarity (which sometimes made him
seem extremely argumentative and eccentric), Vincent finally felt
part of a community of artists. He was able to trade paintings
with many of the Impressionists, and a Parisian dealer even took
some of his work. However, he was still unable to sell any work
for money.
The influence of the Impressionists' color theories and
use of light, along with his rising interest in Japanese prints,
brought Vincent closer to his mature style as he tried a pseudo-Pointillist approach
to painting in discreet, regular, short brushstrokes in heavy impasto
and explored vibrant color, "seeking oppositions... to harmonize
brutal extremes... trying to render intense color and not a gray
harmony" (L 470). By August 1886, Vincent had left Cormon's studio
because of Cormon's refusal of the new color theories and his insistence
on painting plaster casts rather than live nude models. Vincent
painted atmospheric cityscapes (like View from Vincent's
Window and The Roofs of Paris) and a
remarkable series of flowers in vases (like Vase with Poppies,
Daisies, Cornflowers, and Peonies and Vase with
Gladioli) to discipline his discovery of powerful color
and Impressionist/neo-Impressionist theory. His Paris style is
a unique amalgam of Impressionism and his own mature style of proto-Expressionism;
van Gogh was influenced by Impressionism and the flattened, linear
forms of Japanese prints (which he collected), but also by the
old Dutch masters. His art was inherently synthetic, combining
disparate influences to create a completely unique vision and style
of stylized representation that went far beyond the circumscribed
confines of Impressionism. He began to distort and exaggerate form
to express the overwhelming turmoil of his emotional life.
By January 1887, Vincent had become closer to Bernard
and the rest of the Paris avant-garde through time spent at the
art shop of Pere Tanguy, which served as an informal avant-garde
headquarters. He began to concentrate on still-lives (like A
Plate with Lemons and a Carafe and the famous Still
Life of Shoes) and portraits and self-portraits, which
occupied him throughout the rest of his time in Paris. The progression
of his style is extraordinary, from his 1886 Self-Portrait
in a Dark Gray Felt Hay and Portrait of a Man with
a Skullcap, through his winter 1886–87 Self-Portrait
as an Artist and Portrait of Pere Tanguy, to
his incredible Woman at a Table in the Cafe du Tambourin,Self-Portrait
in a Straw Hat, and Portrait of Pere Tanguy, painted
in the spring and summer of 1887 and the following winter. His
idiosyncratic sense of patterned brushstrokes, thick textures,
vibrant and unnatural, even acidic color, and distorted, flat forms
alter "the reality of things" and "natural laws" to achieve profound
emotional ends, "to touch people...by expressing deep
and profound emotions" (L 218).
In Paris, Vincent's psychiatric health began its decline,
and the dark side of his complicated condition (probably a combination
of mild epilepsy and schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, compounded with
syphilis, glaucoma, Digitalis poisoning from paint, and a weakness
for absinthe and alcohol) started to reveal itself in violent mood
swings, depression, and drunken and erratic behavior. Theo wrote
to his sister Wil that "it seems as if there are two different beings
in him, the one marvelously gifted, fine and delicate, the other
selfish and heartless" (Hulsker 248). In the winter of 1887, Vincent
became romantically involved with the female owner of the local
Cafe du Tambourin, where he exhibited work with rising post-Impressionist
stars like Gauguin, Toulouse- Lautrec, and Bernard–he was even able
to organize his own exhibition of Japanese prints at the cafe in
March of 1887. That spring, Vincent spent considerable time painting,
walking, and talking with his new artist friends, especially the
neo-Impressionist Paul Signac and Bernard, and his affair with
the cafe proprietress ended after about five months.
By the beginning of 1888, Vincent had managed to exhibit
his own work at two substantial, proper shows–one that he organized himself
in November 1887 at a restaurant to display the work of the circle
of the younger Paris Impressionists, who became known temporarily
as the "Impressionists of the Petit Boulevard." The neo-Impressionist
leader Georges Seurat was impressed by the show, as was Paul Gauguin
(both artists who had influenced Vincent when he saw their work
in Paris), and Vincent was able to show some work with Seurat and
Signac at the Salle de repitition of the Theatre Libre d'Antoine.
In February 1888, after experiencing a near physical and mental
breakdown due to stress and alcohol, "seriously sick at heart and
in body and nearly an alcoholic...without the courage to hope"
(L 544a), Vincent decided he must move to Arles, in the south of
France, where he could work in a more temperate climate more quietly
and independently and with fewer expenses. He intended to return
to bucolic landscapes, open-air light and color, and peasant portraiture,
writing to his sister Wil, "the thing I hope to achieve is to paint
a good portrait" (LW 1). He decorated Theo's apartment with Japanese
prints and his own paintings and then left his brother (whose health
was in decline due to syphilis) and artist friends in Paris on
February 18, 1888.
