Notes

Some support for concluding Vincent and Theo attended this one-time-only performance comes in a letter from Jo to Theo in March 1889, in which she reports on attending a concert of a "ladies' band from Vienna" at an amusement park in Amsterdam. "The program included Wagner's Lohengrin," she writes cattily, "but I fear the good man would have turned in his grave if he'd heard it" (b2047 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theo van'' to ''Bonger, Jo'', 3/14/1889). That Jo would mention this particular Wagner work suggests that Theo had previously mentioned it to her. Of course, the comment comes an entire year after Vincent left Paris and Theo could have heard a performance in that interim, although Theo professed not to enjoy concerts ("It's nicer to listen to a piece when there are not many people present than at a concert" [Theo to Jo, 01/28/1889, quoted in Jansen and Robert, p. 215]). It should also be pointed out that Theo's interest in music in general, and his enthusiasm for Wagner in particular ("we both thought it was very beautiful"), whether in 1887 or in 1889, was undoubtedly influenced by his attraction to Jo Bonger, who belonged to a family for whom music, not art, was the defining cultural experience. (Jo played the piano [Jansen and Robert, p. 10].) Jo's comment also gives interesting perspective both on the musical parochialism gripping France and the meteoric rise of Wagner's reputation: that Lohengrin could ignite a riot in Paris and soon thereafter serve as program fodder for a women's um-pah band in an Amsterdam amusement park. For other venues where Vincent might have heard Wagner's music, see Ch. 29, n. 12.

By the time Vincent left Paris in February 1888, however, he certainly knew specifically what that illness was. In discussing it in letters from Arles, he refers both to "a brain disease and a disease of the marrow" (JLB 603, 5/4/1888), a virtual definition of syphilis as it was understood; and to the common "potassium iodide" treatments for the disease (JLB 611, 5/20/1888). As to when Vincent told Theo the full truth about his medical condition, the evidence is sparser. Arnold isolates a passage in a letter from Dries Bonger, written after Vincent's death and during Theo's final throes of syphilitic illness in 1890, that suggests Vincent, too, was seeing Dr. Louis Rivet by the time he left Paris: "Rivet said that [Theo's] case is far worse than Vincent's, and that there is not a spark of hope" (Arnold, p. 204). This, combined with Vincent's obvious familiarity with Rivet's personality and methods as shown in subsequent letters, indicates that Rivet was already treating Vincent by the time Vincent left Paris. Arnold leaves open the possibility that Theo kept Rivet informed of Vincent's situation in the intervening years and Rivet's assessment was based on hearsay, not direct treatment (ibid.).

There is certainly ample evidence that Theo consulted Rivet about the progress of Vincent's health in the years 1888-1890 (see, e.g., Theo's letters to Jo in February and March of 1889 when Theo dithered about whether and where to institutionalize Vincent after the ear incident in Arles [Jansen and Robert, letters 56 (p. 184), 58 (p. 188), 59 (p. 191), 72 (p. 222), and 75 (p. 231)]). Nevertheless, Jansen and Robert note: "Theo's physician Louis Rivet had treated Vincent in the years he spent in Paris and therefore knew him reasonably well" (ibid., n. 2). As to when Rivet began treating Vincent in Paris (and thus when Vincent probably revealed his syphilis to Theo), we have only Rivet's statement that Vincent's case was not as advanced as Theo's (apparently the mercury treatments in Antwerp had retarded the progression of the disease) and therefore the assumption that Vincent could have hidden his condition more easily from Theo, and did so, at least until Theo revealed his medical secret to Vincent in the fall-winter of 1887. When Vincent left Paris in February 1888, Theo certainly knew about his condition. In a letter to his sister Lies immediately after Vincent's departure, Theo, perhaps inadvertently, reveals his knowledge: "I am sure that if he still has a few years to live, he will make a name for himself" (b0918 V/1962, ''Gogh, Theo van'' to ''Gogh, Elisabeth van'', 12/24/1888; emphasis added).

Whether or not this was Theo's calculation, it is clear that his intent was to satisfy through his correspondence (for which he had wisely obtained permission when in Amsterdam) Jo's objection to his marriage proposal. The first letter is ardent, but never argumentative, and occasionally even apologetic. The difference in approach and tone between this first letter and the next one from Paris could not be more dramatic. In the second letter, Theo recalls Jo's rejection and objects bitterly to its premises: "You said a few words about the kind of relationship you felt should exist between two people who want to spend their lives together, that if they were to be happy, they should be in complete harmony at the moment they exchanged vows. I think this a very beautiful & very young idea, but it is not true. It is certainly a joy to imagine oneself totally compatible with another person, but it is only a dream, and one that is bound to be followed by a rude awakening." (b4283 V/1984, ''Gogh, Theo van'' to ''Bonger, Jo'', 8/1/1887; emphasis in original.)

This accusation of naiveté is unlikely to have come from Theo, who always considered Jo's naiveté one of her most becoming attributes. The second letter closes with a surprising and, for Theo, uncharacteristically patronizing and accusatory rejection of the rejecter -- another unmistakable trace of Vincent's hand. It was typical of Vincent, whenever rejected in love or friendship, to portray himself as more sinned against than sinning: "Speaking for myself, I would not want the illusion of love. Achieving genuine love takes more than the infatuation that vanishes even more quickly than it comes" (ibid., emphasis in original). The letter also contains a paragraph that sounds as if it were dictated by Vincent as a defense of his long dependence on his younger brother and a call for its renewal: "I think it is far more important, knowing that we are what we are, to extend a hand to one another &, in the faith that we are stronger together than alone, to hope and strive, by living together, to reach a point where we see each other's faults & forgive them & try to nurture whatever is good and noble in one another." (See Ch. 29, n. 8.)

In a telling sign of his non-ideological genius as a dealer, however, Theo could discourse just as movingly on the virtues of "ugliness" in art as long as it was deployed in the service of deeper meaning. In another letter to Jo about the same time, he considers the example of a "modern" painter who "choose[s] as his subject a hideously ugly woman, portraying her in a wretched setting that one would naturally find abhorrent." He continues: "Now, the beauty is certainly not in the subject & yet ... we see that so much work & so much thought have gone into this piece that we cannot doubt that this painter, too, had a reason for rendering this subject. So we have to find out what prompted him to choose this frightful subject. So we ask ourselves, is it authentic? has it been lived? what history does that creature have, what past, what future? What a world of ideas this subject opens up & if we enter into it, the painter will in all likelihood have succeeded in giving us a glimpse of ourselves. And although we have nothing in common with his subject, which is indeed quite as offensive & tasteless as people say, he will have succeeded in touching our very soul. That is art. But it needn't always be interpreted like that & there are other ways of expressing art. But to my mind this concept is the purest, because if one takes it from this point of view, that the most thankless representation can inspire poetry, one need never be unjust. Is it not the same in life?" (ibid.)

Context:
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "Theo works for all the Impressionists, he's done something for and sold for all of them, and will certainly go on doing so. But just these few things that I write to you about the matter will show you how he's something very different from the run of dealers, who care nothing for the painters."

Context:
BVG T4, 3/16/1889: "It will not be long before the public will be asking for pictures of the new school, for they certainly stir up the public mind."
JLB 749, 3/16/1889: "In a little while the public will certainly want paintings by the new school, for they're certainly exercising the public mind."

Context:
BVG 677, 9/9/1888: "But what would Monsieur Tersteeg say about this picture when he said before a Sisley -- Sisley, the most discreet and gentle of the impressionists -- 'I can't help thinking that the artist who painted that was a little tipsy.'"
JLB 677, 9/9/1888: "But what would Mr. Tersteeg say about this painting? He who, looking at a Sisley -- Sisley, the most tactful and sensitive of the Impressionists -- had already said: 'I can't stop myself thinking that the artist who painted that was a little tipsy.'"

Context:
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "I'll write this to Gauguin and will ask him for croquis of paintings. We shouldn't push this business and give up on R. for the time being, but consider the thing as an ongoing piece of business that will come off. And the same for Guillaumin, I'd like him to buy a figure by G."

The question of when Bernard and Vincent met is only one of many battlefields on which Bernard's veracity can be contested. This is partly because he himself gave multiple, conflicting versions of their first encounter. Van Tilborgh does an admirable job of parsing the variations on two basic storylines: (1) that Bernard and Vincent met at the Cormon studio when Vincent was a student there, and (2) that they met at Tanguy's paint store. For a long time, the issue of when Vincent attended the Cormon studio was clouded by the first of these claims (Van Tilborgh, in Van Tilborgh and Hendriks, p. 47; n. 49-52). (In 1890, Bernard wrote, "I met Vincent Van Gogh for the first time at the Cormon workshop" [Bernard, "Vincent van Gogh," n.p.].) Independent evidence pointed to an attendance in the spring of 1886, but Bernard was dismissed from the atelier in early spring, left Paris on April 6 for a walking tour in Brittany, and didn't return until October. (See Van Tilborgh, in Van Tilborgh and Hendriks, pp. 37-41.)

To reconcile the conflicting evidence, commentators had either to argue, as Rewald did, that Bernard returned to the atelier prior to his departure in April and saw Vincent at work, or to argue that Vincent attended Cormon's studio in the fall of 1886 (Rewald, Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin, p. 22). (In 1903, Bernard "clarified" his account by insisting that he first met Vincent at Cormon's studio after returning from his Brittany trip [Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 211].) Others argued that perhaps Vincent had split his time at the atelier between the spring and the fall. (More recent analysis (2001) has put this contorted chronology to rest [Van Heugten, pp. 21-22].) But the efforts to reconcile Bernard's accounts are ultimately doomed. Welsh-Ovcharov, who proceeds through the evidence with great care and sympathy for Bernard, is left with a muddle. Almost all of Bernard's accounts give or imply an 1886 date for his initial encounter with Vincent; yet in 1893 his first recorded recollection of the date of their meeting states forthrightly: "It is in 1887 that I met him [in] the shop of père Tanguy" (Bernard, "Extraits de lettres à Émile Bernard,” n.p.). 

While some commentators dismiss this "1887" as a slip of the pen (see, e.g., Van Tilborgh, in Van Tilborgh and Hendriks, p. 47, n. 51), it is far more consistent with Bernard's personality and ambition that he revised his story in subsequent tellings to put himself together with the famous Vincent van Gogh at the earliest possible moment, thus eclipsing other artists, like Anquetin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Gauguin, who came into Vincent's life in the second half of 1887 as a result of Theo's entry into the market for vanguard art. Welsh-Ovcharov discredits (rightly, in our opinion) the photograph of two men seated at a table in an outdoor cafe in Asnières that Bernard produced as proof of a relationship with Vincent prior to the fall-winter of 1887 (Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 59). Bernard claimed that the picture showed Vincent and him even though the man at the table with him is unidentifiable because his back is to the camera. Someone (Bernard?) inscribed the photograph "1886" (ibid.). Ultimately, Welsh-Ovcharov arrives at the same place as the text: that is, that Bernard and Vincent may have encountered each other at Tanguy's or elsewhere in the fall-winter of 1886-87, but the connection did not "take" (i.e., develop into a friendship) until the second half of 1887 (ibid., p. 33).

Context:
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "The exhibition of Japanese prints that I had at the Tambourin had quite an influence on Anquetin and Bernard, but it was such a disaster."

Bernard, "Souvenirs sur Van Gogh," p. 39: In addition to the evidence discussed in Ch. 29, n. 99, Bernard inadvertently provides additional support for dating the beginning of their relationship to late summer of 1887. See this account from 1924, for additional information.  In this source, Bernard makes references to Tanguy and Cormon's studio, which are sheer confabulation (see Ch. 29, n. 99). The inadvertently revealing details here are the references to Guillaumin and Signac. 

Theo and Vincent did not make their first contacts with either Guillaumin (see Ch. 29, n. 89) or Signac until the spring of 1887. Bernard left Paris in May and did not return until July. Furthermore, Bernard's descriptions of Vincent visiting his studio at his family's house in Asnières must date from after the summer trip because his family moved to the Asnières house while he was away in Brittany (Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, pp. 32-33). After carefully weighing all the evidence, Welsh-Ovcharov concludes that the "working association" between Vincent and Bernard began after Bernard's return from his summer trip (ibid.).

Bernard also claimed that Vincent "began" a portrait of him in the Asnières studio, "but having quarreled with my father, who refused to go along with his advice concerning my future, he grew so angry that he abandoned my portrait and carried off, unfinished, that of Tanguy, flinging it still wet under his arm. Then he left without a backward glance and never set foot in our house again." (Quoted in Van Gogh, Vincent, in Stein, ed., pp. 91-92.) Despite opportunities to complete the portrait of Bernard in the rue Lepic apartment, no such portrait has survived, nor is it mentioned, nor was it Vincent's practice to paint portraits of artist friends -- he preferred to exchange self-portraits. Nor has any evidence surfaced from the surviving portraits of Tanguy to support the careless handling Bernard describes. The reported incident between Vincent and Bernard's father, like so many of Bernard's stories, reeks of invention: the parallel to Vincent's fights with his own father -- stories known to Bernard by the time he wrote this account in 1911 -- and the convenient way it advances the narrative of Bernard as a rebel (like Vincent), make it deeply suspect in our view.

For reasons previously explained, we believe that Valadon's story dates to the fall-winter of 1887-88. If Vincent and Toulouse-Lautrec had any associations during the winter of 1886-87, Bernard, who was close to Toulouse-Lautrec and Anquetin during the period, would have recalled them, which he did not. (The same applies to any relations between Vincent and Anquetin in the earlier period.) As for the dating of the "portrait" that Toulouse-Lautrec made of Vincent (see Ch. 29, n. 145), it is a pure invention of Bernard's that it was painted at Le Tambourin (see Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 60), a claim which, if true, would put Vincent and Toulouse-Lautrec together in the early part of 1887. As discussed in Ch. 29, n. 99, Bernard did not know Vincent in the winter, spring, or early summer of 1886-87 when Vincent's drama with Segatori began and played itself out. Without Bernard's testimony, the portrait is not specifically dateable. Welsh-Ovcharov notes that "problems exist in dating Toulouse-Lautrec's oeuvre circa 1885-87" and advises that the question of Vincent's "influence" on Toulouse-Lautrec's portrait should be left open (Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 205). Coquiot claimed that Vincent and Toulouse-Lautrec left Cormon's studio together (Coquiot, p. 146), but the account of Hartrick, another Cormon student who attended the atelier with Toulouse-Lautrec in the 1886-87 season, states categorically, "I cannot remember seeing Toulouse-Lautrec in the company of Vincent" (Hartrick, p. 50).

Biographically, the earlier dating is inconsistent with Theo's accounts of Vincent's alienating behavior in Paris that winter and with the cool reactions of other artists, such as Signac and Angrand, toward Vincent's occasional efforts to make connections with his fellow painters. Although the literature long adhered to the story that Vincent introduced Theo to artists like Toulouse-Lautrec (see Rewald, Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin, p. 67), it is far more likely that Theo developed a relationship with Toulouse-Lautrec before Vincent and purposefully did not bring his brother into it for many months. In May, just about the time Theo and Vincent were reconciling (temporarily), Toulouse-Lautrec left for Arcachon for the summer, so Theo could not have brought Vincent into their relationship until the fall. But we think it far more likely that Bernard, who assiduously developed his relationships with both Toulouse-Lautrec and Anquetin, brought Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent together for their brief association in the last months of 1887. Even then, they interacted only tangentially, at a remove: Toulouse-Lautrec as a satellite of Bernard's; Vincent as a satellite of his brother.

Context:
JLB 571, 7/17/1887-7/19/1887: "I saw Toulouse-Lautrec today, he's sold a picture, through Portier I think."

Schuffenecker, like his friend Paul Gauguin, quit his job as a stockbroker after the market crash of 1882 and turned to art. He quickly made a mark, helping to found the Salon des Indépendants in 1884 and taking part in the eighth and final Impressionist Exhibition in 1886.

Lepère painted only sporadically in his career, choosing to focus instead on revolutionizing the art of printmaking. He contributed wood-engravings to magazines, but specialized in single-sheet woodcuts, thus elevating the status of engraving from a craft to an art, and of engravers from craftsmen to artists. Nevertheless, the Lepère work in the collection of the Van Gogh brothers was a painting, Montmartre in the Snow (n.d.) (illustrated in Stolwijk and Thomson, p. 163). Stolwijk and Thomson speculate that the painting was the result of an exchange for a painting of Vincent's, but doesn't say why (ibid., p. 161).

Here are the relevant dating parameters: Toulouse-Lautrec took his studio at 7, rue Tourlaque in the summer of 1886, after Vincent had left Cormon's. Toulouse-Lautrec was absent from Paris in August and September 1886 (ibid.) and then returned to Cormon's, where he met a new classmate, A.S. Hartrick. In his memoir, Hartrick says that he never saw Vincent with Toulouse-Lautrec (Hartrick, p. 50). Toulouse-Lautrec left Cormon's late in 1886, but remained very close with his Cormon classmates Anquetin and Bernard. Without doubt, if Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent had maintained any significant contact that winter, Bernard would have been involved, but Bernard did not enter the Van Gogh brothers' circle until the fall of 1887, his own claims notwithstanding (see Ch. 29, n. 106). If Gauzi is correct and Toulouse-Lautrec did not meet Valadon until early 1887 (see Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh and the Birth of Cloisonism, p. 334), then the "weekly gatherings" Valadon describes could not have begun until sometime thereafter (she remained at Toulouse-Lautrec's for about two years). But Toulouse-Lautrec left Paris in May 1887, which leaves a window of only one or two months (March-April) -- right at the peak of the turmoil in the Van Gogh brothers' relationship -- for Vincent's visits to Toulouse-Lautrec's studio as described by Valadon. It is inevitable that Toulouse-Lautrec, like Bernard and most other avant-garde artists in Paris, visited Le Tambourin tavern that winter, but there is no evidence from him that he saw or noticed Vincent's works on the walls at Segatori's notorious eatery. (If Valadon is correct and "no one took notice" of them in the studio, why would he?) Some sources, based on Bernard's account, place Toulouse-Lautrec's portrait of Vincent (see Ch. 29, n. 145) not only in the winter of 1886-87 but at Le Tambourin in particular (Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 60), but this is undoubtedly another of Bernard's self-serving inventions (see Ch. 29, n. 115).

Subsequent commentators like Welsh-Ovcharov and Stolwijk have demonstrated convincingly that (1) Vincent's interactions with other painters in Paris were far more limited in time and scope than Theo suggests (Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 252) and (2) that Theo's financial support of the brothers' "circle of painters and new friends" was far more limited during the Paris period than Rewald infers (Stolwijk and Thomson). Even without these formidable rebuttals, Theo's exhortation to Vincent could be readily dismissed as just another case of Theo, the peacemaker, putting family harmony, reassurance, and encouragement above factual accuracy. (Theo's letter to Wil immediately after Vincent's departure from Paris in February 1888 falls into the same category: "I have got to know many painters through him and he is very well thought of in their circles" [b0914 V/1962, ''Gogh, Theo van'' to ''Gogh, Willemina van'', 2/24/1888]. For other examples, see Ch. 27, n. 237.)

The passage is probably most useful as an insight into how Theo mollified and encouraged Vincent during the brothers' time together in Paris in the last months of 1887 and early 1888 when they briefly pursued their long-talked-about "joint enterprise" in relative harmony. Theo must have made special efforts to convince Vincent that his participation made a genuine contribution to the project and that the other artists were not merely humoring him to gain access to Theo and Goupil. The latter was, in fact, the truth -- but a painful one to Vincent who always smarted over his dependence on his younger brother. Surely Theo's claim that he was "absolutely incapable of doing [it] by my own self" is insupportable -- as he proved when Vincent left Paris in February 1888 and Theo's business with the very same vanguard artists, and others, flourished. Much of the brothers' interaction during the post-Paris period can be seen as Theo trying to perpetuate the consoling fiction that he articulates here: that Vincent had played and would continue to play a crucial role in the success of Theo's enterprise on the entresol.

Context:
BVG T3, 10/27/1888: "You may do something for me if you like -- that is, go on as in the past, and create an entourage of artists and friends for us, something which I am absolutely incapable of doing by my own self, and which you have been able to do, more or less, since you came to France."
JLB 713, 10/27/1888: "You can, if you wish, do something for me; that's to continue as in the past and create for us a circle of artists and friends, something which I'm utterly incapable of doing by myself and which you, however, have more or less created since you've been in France."

Context:
BVG B1, 9/22/1887-12/21/1887: "I shall be glad to do all I can to make a success of what we began in the café, but I think that the primary condition on which success depends is to set aside all petty jealousies, for only union is strength."
JLB 575, December 1887: "I'll gladly do all I can to make a success of what was started in the dining-room, but I believe that the first condition for success is to put aside petty jealousies; it's only unity that makes strength"

Context:
BVG B1, 9/22/1887-12/21/1887: "I shall be glad to do all I can to make a success of what we began in the café, but I think that the primary condition on which success depends is to set aside all petty jealousies, for only union is strength."
JLB 575, December 1887: "I'll gladly do all I can to make a success of what was started in the dining-room, but I believe that the first condition for success is to put aside petty jealousies; it's only unity that makes strength"

Context:
JLB 575, December 1887: "It's well worth sacrificing selfishness, the 'each man for himself', in the common interest."

Later, Welsh-Ovcharov notes that Vincent sometimes confused the meaning of the term "petit boulevard", again suggesting that he did not coin it (Welsh-Ovcharov, Van Gogh, p. 26, n. 5). The habit in the literature of attributing the term to Vincent is, likeso many other miscues, traceable to Bernard's later, inflated accounts. 

Context:
BVG B1, 9/22/1887-12/21/1887: " If you work a lot during that year, I think you might end up by having a certain stock of pictures, some of which we shall try to sell for you, as we know you will need ready money to pay for models."
JLB 575, December 1887: " If you work hard that year, I believe that you may well succeed in having a fair stock of canvases, some of which we'll try to sell for you, knowing that you'll need pocket money to pay for models."

Context:
JLB 588, 3/21/1888 or 3/22/1888: "Here's a short note for Bernard and Lautrec, to whom I'd solemnly promised to write."

In one of his later accounts of the Du Chalet show, Bernard asserts for the first time that Vincent chose the Du Chalet venue out of proletarian solidarity: "He envisaged launching the 'petit boulevard' group through a socially motivated exhibition in a popular restaurant on the avenue de Clichy, where he was a regular." Bernard then attributes to Vincent a speech that is neither credible nor flattering: "'We must spread art amongst the little people,' he explains to me, 'we neglect them too much; we keep them in ignorance; we only offer them cheap lithographs; the gaiety of impressionism must refresh them after their labours and make them forget their restlessness in a vision of enchantment!'" (Bernard quoted in ibid.) Inevitably, this figment of Bernard's rich imagination has been taken up by subsequent commentators with a Marxist bent. But surely Gustave Albert Aurier's observation that these marginal painters in Paris would have hung their paintings in a palace if one had been available captures better both the financial exigencies of their existence and the middle-class essence of their aspirations.

Welsh-Ovcharov argues "landmark importance" for the Du Chalet show, despite its "inauspicious end," citing both the passage in Vincent's letter and Bernard's later, transparently self-aggrandizing claim that "It had a truly novel aspect, it was then the latest thing in Paris" (Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 38). (Curiously, in a different account, Bernard admits that the show was "not a success" [Bernard, "Souvenirs sur Van Gogh," p. 393].) Further, Welsh-Ovcharov portrays the exhibition both as a turning point in the Van Gogh brothers' relations with artists in Paris (Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 39) and as a "galvanizing" moment in the formation of the Symbolist movement (ibid., p. 38). In fact, all the contemporary evidence, both direct and circumstantial, points to yet another ignominious personal catastrophe that went barely noticed in the art world at the time. (See Thomson, in Homburg, p. 81.) We know nothing about the Anquetin "study" mentioned by Vincent (size, price, buyer, terms, etc.), or about the Bernard work "sold" -- unless Vincent is referring to the exchange he made for Bernard's portrait of his grandmother, perhaps with one of his own paintings (see Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 284) or perhaps for some Japanese prints (JLB 640, 7/15/1888). The exchange with Gauguin inaugurated a long and (from Gauguin's perspective, at least) profitable liaison with Theo -- not a relationship with Vincent, who left Paris only two months after the show closed. (See Ch. 29, n. 310.) (When Gauguin went to join Vincent in Arles the following winter, it was at Theo's behest, not out of friendship with Vincent. (See Chapter 30.) Not a single one of Vincent's far-more-numerous canvases sold, apparently, and the exhibition ended, as at Le Tambourin, in an embarrassing personal imbroglio. It was only in art-historical retrospect, that this near-travesty was elevated into an epochal triumph.

Context:
JLB 585, 3/16/1888: "You'll do well to go and see Signac at his place. I was very pleased at what you wrote in today's letter, that he made a better impression on you than the first time."

Context:
BVG B1, 9/22/1887-12/21/1887: "I shall be glad to do all I can to make a success of what we began in the café, but I think that the primary condition on which success depends is to set aside all petty jealousies, for only union is strength."
JLB 575, December 1887: "I'll gladly do all I can to make a success of what was started in the dining-room, but I believe that the first condition for success is to put aside petty jealousies; it's only unity that makes strength."

Context:
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "But better not rely any more on the people of Marseille than on Paris."

Context:
BVG 489, 5/20/1888: "Remember how last winter I was stupefied to the point of being absolutely incapable of doing anything at all, except a little painting, although I was not taking any iodide of potassium."
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: "If you remember how stupefied I was myself this winter, to the point of being quite incapable! of doing anything whatsoever, apart from a little painting."

There are other ways to interpret the differences between these two contemporaneous renderings of the same motif, however. One is that the characteristics of Still Life: French Novels (F 358 JH 1612) that Hendriks isolates as cloisonnist (quick application, broad brush, flat areas of fill-in) could simply reflect the preparatory nature of the image. The other, which the text argues, is that Vincent was following multiple examples, serving multiple masters. Indeed, there is evidence that Vincent and Bernard had a falling-out at the end of 1887 specifically over the value of Neo-Impressionism in general and Bernard's hostility toward Signac in particular. ("I persist in believing that -- not because I gave you a piece of my mind but because it will become your own conviction ... that Signac and the others who are doing pointillism often make very beautiful things with it" (JLB 575, December 1887) [See Ch. 29, n. 144]) Thus, Vincent could have chosen to depict this motif in one way for Signac and fellow Neo-Impressionists like Pissarro, and in a very different way for Bernard.

Context:
JLB 483, 2/5/1885-2/26/1885: "What also struck me was a figure of a girl by Emile Lévy, Japonaise, …"

Context:
JLB 534, 10/10/1885: "Will also send you before long a book by De Goncourt -- Chérie. De Goncourt is always good, and the way he works so conscientious, and so much toil goes into it."

Context:
JLB 545, 11/28/1885: "My studio's quite tolerable, mainly because I've pinned a set of Japanese prints on the walls that I find very diverting. You know, those little female figures in gardens or on the shore, horsemen, flowers, gnarled thorn branches."

Context:
JLB 545, 11/28/1885: "Well, these docks are one huge Japonaiserie, fantastic, singular, strange -- at least so one can see them. I'd like to walk with you there to find out whether we look at things the same way."

While we agree with Roskill that Vincent had read Duret's essay by the time he left Paris for Arles in February 1888, we are wary of the literature's bias toward advancing Vincent's involvement with the Parisian avant-garde to the earliest possible point in his Paris stay (Roskill, pp. 265-266). "Sightings" of Japanese influence in his works from the first half of 1887 and even 1886 are common. Almost all of these involve either his use of perspective or his placement of staffage in views of the city. Van Heugten makes such a case for Vincent's watercolors dated to the summer of 1887, including Entrance to the Moulin de la Galette (F 1406 JH 1277), Road Running Beside the Paris Ramparts (F 140 JH 1283), Gate in Paris Ramparts (F 1401 JH 1284), and Shed with Sunflowers (F 1411 JH 1305) (Van Heugten, pp. 30-31; echoing Hulsker, p. 254). (Hulsker would add The Ramparts of Paris [F 1402 JH 1280] and Outskirts of Paris near Montmartre [F 1410 JH 1286] [Hulsker, p. 254]). "The compositions, use of colour and the way in which small, lively figures populate the scenes strongly recall the Japanese arphetypes," according to Van Heugten (Van Heugten, pp. 30-31). More circumspectly, Hulsker sees "a touch of the Japanese ... if for no other reason than the quantity of little figures" (Hulsker, p. 254). In Outskirts of Paris near Montmartre (F 1410 JH 1286), Hulsker finds the "narrative, linear style" and "high vantage point ... clearly related to the wood cuts of Hiroshige." (ibid.) In fact, Vincent had been intrigued by high vantage points, exaggerated perspective, and eavesdropping on crowds and passersby since his dawning days as an artist. The same is true about views out windows, which Van Tilborgh sees as the influence of Japanese prints in works like Still Life with Absinthe (F 339 JH 1238) (Van Tilborgh, in Van Tilborgh and Hendriks, p. 87) and View of Paris from Vincent's Room in the Rue Lepic (F 341 JH 1242) (ibid., pp. 99-100), but which had long fascinated Vincent (see, e.g., Chapter 17).

The more precise analysis, we believe, is that Vincent's interest in Japanese prints was influenced by these oft-expressed predilections, not the other way round. In any event, there is little dispute in the literature with Welsh-Ovcharov's point that Japanese prints did not exert a determinative influence on Vincent's art until the last few months of 1887 -- exactly at the time he fell under the spell of Émile Bernard. Surprisingly, Orton accepts Hartrick's unreliable and unpersuasive observation that Vincent was using brushstrokes to replicate the crinkled look of crépons in paintings like Still Life with French Novels and a Rose (F 359 JH 1332) and, on that flawed basis, implies that the distinctive texture of these prints influenced Vincent's facture prior to the last quarter of 1887 (Orton, p. 6). Interestingly, Roskill does not see a significant influence of Japanese prints on Vincent's art until the last months of 1888 (Roskill, p. 83).

Context:
JLB 551, 1/2/1886: "There's a stained-glass window that I find superb -- very, very remarkable. A shore, a green sea with a castle on the rocks, a sparkling blue sky in the most magnificent tones of blue, greenish, whitish, deeper, higher in tone."

Context:
BVG 439, 12/8/1885-12/15/1885: " Hardly anything, and yet for me a great deal, because of the peculiar sentiment in the juxtaposition of colors."
JLB 547, 12/14/1885: "So nothing, and yet I found a lot because of the singular feeling for contrasting colours."

By attributing Vincent's knowledge of and enthusiasm for the new art to Bernard, we do not mean to diminish Anquetin's contribution to the "movement" relative to Bernard's. But Vincent's relationship was clearly with the younger artist, not Anquetin, with whom Vincent had no known correspondence and, in subsequent letters, never recalled a single encounter. (Nor did Anquetin leave any record of encounters with Vincent.) Vincent does claim that his exhibition of prints at Le Tambourin "had quite an influence on Anquetin and Bernard" (JLB 640, 7/15/1888), and that he "got Anquetin and Bernard to learn [at Bing's]" (JLB 642, 7/15/1888). But, as discussed previously, these were likely nothing more than regurgitations of Bernard's blandishments. Vincent clearly knew Anquetin's work and admired it in letters to both Bernard and Theo (JLB 628, 6/19/1888; (JLB 669, 8/26/1888). When in early 1888 the Revue Indépendante named Anquetin "the leader of a new movement," Vincent immediately recommended that Theo give Anquetin one of Vincent's paintings (The Bridge at Langlois [F 397 JH 1368]), but this seems more a strategic than a friendly or congratulatory gesture (JLB 620, 6/5/1888). In the same letter, he opines that Anquetin "won't like what I'm doing" -- a suggestion that Anquetin was not a fan of his work in Paris, nor a particularly close friend (ibid.). (Only once, two years later, at the end of his stay in the asylum at Saint-Rémy, does Vincent perhaps refer to Anquetin as a "friend" in this ambiguous closing in a letter to Bernard: "In thought a very warm handshake, to Anquetin too, to other friends if you see them [JLB 822, 11/26/1889].)

Bernard, on the other hand, was obviously more tolerant of Vincent's peculiarities and more willing to curry his favor en route to Theo. It was this that made him the new art's primary nuncio at the rue Lepic, and subsequently. As an artist who had long craved but seldom enjoyed professional camaraderie, Vincent inevitably conflated message and messenger. And, indeed, disagreeing with the Revue Indépendante, he privately conferred primacy in the new art on Bernard, not Anquetin, writing Theo: "young Bernard has perhaps gone further than Anquetin in the Japanese style" (JLB 620, 6/5/1888). This undoubtedly reflects his bias based on his dealing primarily with Bernard in Paris -- and, of course, on Bernard's self-promotion -- not an independent or objective judgment.

Context:
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "The exhibition of Japanese prints that I had at the Tambourin had quite an influence on Anquetin and Bernard."

Context:
JLB 545, 11/28/1885: "A white horse in the mud, in a corner where heaps of merchandise lie covered with a tarpaulin -- against the old, black, smoke-stained walls of the warehouse. Quite simple -- but a Black and White effect."

Context:
JLB 642, 7/15/1888: "Now, there's still more to learn at Bing's, and that's why I urge you to keep our stock there, and access to the attics and cellars, and you see how far I am from seeing it as a speculation" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 511, 7/15/1888: "I only tell you this because I have rummaged in the heap four or five times, the prints at home are the result of a stock already several times renewed."
JLB 642, 7/15/1888: "I'm telling you only this -- I've gone through the lot four or 5 times; the sheets at our place are the result of replenishing the stock several times already."

Context:
BVG 510, 7/15/1888: "There is an attic in Bing's house with thousands of prints piled up, landscape and figures, and old prints too."
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "There's an attic at Bing's, and in it there's a heap of 10 thousand Japanese prints, landscapes, figures, old Japanese prints too."

Context:
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "There's an attic at Bing's, and in it there's a heap of 10 thousand Japanese prints, landscapes, figures, old Japanese prints too."

Context:
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "But take the Hokusais as well then, 300 views of the sacred mountain and scenes of manners and customs."

Context:
BVG 511, 7/15/1888: "Because there are so many one gets confused."
JLB 642, 7/15/1888: "Because you're dazzled, there's so much of it."

Context:
JLB 642, 7/15/1888: "I've gone through the lot [in Bing's attic] four or 5 times; the sheets at our place are the result of replenishing the stock several times already."

Context:
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "Now the Japanese prints cost us 3 sous each. For 100 francs, if we pay the 90 francs, besides all of what we have left, we'll have a new stock of 660 Japanese prints. Or half of them for the 50 francs enclosed."

Context:
JLB 642, 7/15/1888: "And that will procure you a Claude Monet and other paintings, because if you take the trouble to dig out the Japanese prints, you certainly have the right to do exchanges with them, with the painters, for paintings."

Context:
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "Their manager's a very decent fellow, as it seemed to me, and good to people who are seriously interested in the subject. I myself don't understand why you don't have the fine Japanese prints at boulevard Montmartre. He'll give you some of the best ones on deposit, I'm sure."

Context:
BVG 510, 7/15/1888: "But please keep the Bing stock, it is too much of an advantage."
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "But please, keep the Bing stock. The benefit's too great."

Not only is there no evidence to support this narrative, there is significant evidence to rebut it. In July 1888, four months after Vincent left Paris, Theo wrote his brother in Arles a letter complaining about an outstanding debt at Bing's. Theo proposed settling the matter by returning some of the prints that Vincent took "on consignment" and breaking off the relationship with Bing ("to have done" with Bing [quoted in JLB 640, 7/15/1888].) Vincent responds with two frantic letters written on the same day pleading with Theo not to take these drastic steps. Indeed, he urges quite the opposite course: he proposes that Theo take Bing's "whole stock" and sell it himself at his own gallery ("I myself don't understand why you don't have the fine Japanese prints at boulevard Montmartre" [JLB 640, 7/15/1888].) This contrary delusion -- of increasing business with Bing -- occupies much of the first letter. The second letter takes up a different line of argument: artistic rather than commercial. "The fact is, we don't know enough about Japanese art," he writes, desperately trying to tie the dealing of crépons to Theo's project of dealing in Impressionist paintings (JLB 642, 7/15/1888). "Fortunately, we know more about the French Japanese, the Impressionists" (ibid.). He suggests that Theo could exchange some prints for a painting by Monet, an artist with whom Theo had had significant success by July 1888 (ibid.).

Vincent also pleads his passion for the prints, essentially warning Theo not to deprive him of something that has become so meaningful to him: "But this doesn't mean that if I had a single day in which I could see Paris again," he writes, "I wouldn't call at Bing's precisely to go and see the Hokusais and other drawings from the true period" (ibid.). It is in this context of pleading that Vincent writes the line that is so often quoted about Vincent's trips to Bing's: "I learned there myself, and I got Anquetin and Bernard to learn with me" -- again tying crépons to painters in whom Theo has expressed an interest. Vincent closes his rebuttal brief with a defiant rejection of Theo's proposal for separation: "But to break off our relations with Bing -- oh no, never that" (ibid.). To what extent these fierce arguments represent artistic conviction, Japanomania, wounded self-justification, fraternal resentment, or sheer bullheadedness, is, as always with Vincent, difficult to know. But one thing emerges absolutely clearly from these two letters: Theo had little if any role in putting together the collection of prints that accumulated in the rue Lepic apartment in the winter of 1887-88.

Apparently, he never accompanied Vincent to Bing's store, never met Bing, and never dealt with the store's manager. He didn't know where the prints were kept or how they were arranged. The extent to which Theo was divorced from Vincent's activities at Bing's is underscored first by the six-month delay in Theo "discovering" Vincent's unpaid debt there, and second, by Vincent's lame, belated explanation of why the debt had gone unpaid: "I went to [Bing's] place myself 3 times at New Year [1888] to pay," he informs Theo in July, "when I found the shop closed, probably for stocktaking" (JLB 640, 7/15/1888). Notice of the overdue debt could not have been Theo's first indication of Vincent's purchasing of Japanese prints (they hung in Vincent's studio and elsewhere in the apartment), but it does appear to mark his first real involvement with "the brothers'" collection.

Context:
JLB 642, 7/15/1888: "I learned there myself, and I got Anquetin and Bernard to learn with me."

Context:
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: "If you remember how stupefied I was myself this winter, to the point of being quite incapable! of doing anything whatsoever, apart from a little painting, although I wasn't taking potassium iodide at all."

Context:
BVG W1, 6/21/1887-12/21/1887: "Anyway, it's not a bad idea for you to become an artist, for when one has fire within oneself and a soul, one cannot keep bottling them up -- better to burn than to burst, what is in will out."
JLB 574, October 1887: "Anyway, it's not a bad idea for you to want to become an artist, because if one has fire in one, and soul, one can't keep stifling them and -- one would rather burn than suffocate. What's inside must get out."

Context:
BVG 605, 9/7/1889-9/8/1889: "My dear brother, you know that I came to the south and threw myself into work for a thousand reasons …"
JLB 801, 9/10/1889: "My dear brother, you know that I came to the south and threw myself into work for a thousand reasons."

Context:
BVG 605, 9/7/1889-9/8/1889: "… looking for a different light, believing that observing nature under a brighter sky might give one a more accurate idea of the way the Japanese feel and draw."
JLB 801, 9/10/1889: " To want to see another light, to believe that looking at nature under a brighter sky can give us a more accurate idea of the Japanese way of feeling and drawing."

Context:
BVG 489, 5/20/1888: "I should not be greatly surprised if your illness were also a reaction from that terrible winter, which has lasted an eternity."
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: "I shouldn't be too surprised if your illness was also a reaction to this dreadful winter, which lasted an age."

Context:
JLB 873, 5/20/1890: "I really felt in Paris that all the noise there wasn't what I need."

Context:
BVG B7, 6/18/1888: "It's the fault of that damned foul wine in Paris and those foul greasy steaks. My God, I had reached the point where my blood was no longer circulating at all, literally no longer at all."
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "It's that bloody filthy Paris wine and the filthy fat of the steaks that do that to you -- dear God, I had come to a state in which my own blood was no longer working at all, but literally not at all, as they say."

Context:
BVG B7, 6/18/1888: "It's the fault of that damned foul wine in Paris and those foul greasy steaks. My God, I had reached the point where my blood was no longer circulating at all, literally no longer at all."
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "It's that bloody filthy Paris wine and the filthy fat of the steaks that do that to you -- dear God, I had come to a state in which my own blood was no longer working at all, but literally not at all, as they say."

Context:
BVG 474, 4/9/1888: "I mean, you must not put yourself out unnecessarily, there is so much to do here, all sorts of studies, not the way it is in Paris, where you can't sit down wherever you want."
JLB 594, 4/9/1888: "This is to tell you that you shouldn't force yourself for no reason — there's so much to do here, all sorts of studies, that it's not the same as in Paris, where you can't sit down wherever you please."

Context:
JLB 801, 9/10/1889: "… one feels that the colours of the prism are veiled in mist in the north."

Context:
BVG 519, 8/8/1888: "Doesn't the fault really lie a little with Paris and the Parisians, changeable and faithless as the sea?"
JLB 657, 8/8/1888: "Isn't it partly the fault of Paris and the Parisians, fickle and disloyal like the sea?"

Context:
JLB 695, 10/3/1888: "When we'll talk about those strange days of discussions in the poor studios and the cafés of the Petit Boulevard, and you'll see in full our idea, my brother's and mine, which hasn't in any way been carried out, in terms of forming an association."

Context:
JLB 572, 7/23/1887-7/25/1887: "And then I'm going to retreat to somewhere in the south so as not to see so many painters who repel me as men."

Context:
BVG W1, 6/21/1887-12/21/1887: "I often work with pleasure and can visualize the vague possibility of one day doing paintings with some youth and freshness in them, even though my own youth is one of the things I have lost."
JLB 574, October 1887: "I have a dirty and difficult occupation, painting, and if I weren't as I am I wouldn't paint, but being as I am I often work with pleasure, and I see the possibility glimmering through of making paintings in which there's some youth and freshness, although my own youth is one of those things I've lost."

Context:
BVG W2, 2/28/1888: "Besides, what they want in pictures nowadays is a contrast of colours, and these colours highly intensified and variegated, rather than subdued gray tones."
JLB 574, October 1887: "Enjoy yourself as much as you can and have as many distractions as you can, and be aware that what people want in art nowadays has to be very lively, with strong colour, very intense."

Vincent's plan involved persuading Theo's fellow gérant in The Hague, H. G. Tersteeg, to openly support Theo's claim of priority in selling the new art in England. He argued that this would indirectly (through the chain of seniority within Goupil, presumably) keep Reid in check: "Would you read the letter I've written to Mr. Tersteeg -- and would you send it to him with a letter from you if you judge the move is right. You see, for myself I thought we had to make an effort from this end, because we'll have Reid through Elbert Jan van Wisselingh and Van Wisselingh through Tersteeg." (JLB 580, 2/27/1888.) Given Vincent's unrepaired relations with his old boss Tersteeg, Theo must have seen this as a delusional plan, at least insofar as the proposal was seen to come from Vincent.

Context:
JLB 578, 2/24/1888: "About the Impressionists -- it would seem fair to me that they should be introduced into England through you, if not by you in person. And if Reid made a move first, we'd be justified in thinking he had acted in bad faith towards us, all the more so since we'd have left him free regarding the Marseille Monticellis."

Context:
BVG 464, 2/25/1888: "If you agree to this, you can, if necessary, tell him from me too that if he intends to come to Marseilles to buy Monticellis, he has nothing to fear from us, but that we have the right to ask what he intends to do, seeing that we have got the start on him on this ground."
JLB 578, 2/24/1888: "And if you agree with this, if need be you can tell him on my behalf too that if he intends to come to Marseille to buy Monticellis he has nothing to fear from us, but that we're entitled to ask him his intentions in this regard, given that we came to this territory before he did."

The notion that Gauguin invited Vincent to join him in Pont-Aven in February 1888 is preposterous on its face. There is no evidence that the two artists knew each other, or had even met, by the time Vincent left Paris (see Ch. 29, n. 310). Gauguin's reaction to Vincent's companionship when they did finally did get to know each other in Arles in late 1888 strongly argues that they had had little commerce prior to that. If they had, Gauguin would not have accepted Theo's enticements to Arles and certainly would not have invited Vincent to Pont-Aven.

All that can be reasonably made of Vincent's claim in JLB 628, 6/19/1888 is that he wished Gauguin had invited him to Pont-Aven in February. In the middle of his furious campaign to bring Gauguin to Arles (see Ch. 31), Vincent was apparently seized by regret for a lost opportunity. To believe Vincent's claim in JLB 628, 6/19/1888 that he was actively considering an offer from Gauguin to join him in Pont-Aven in February 1888 would also make a complete hash of the extensive arguments in the literature for the proposition that Vincent was drawn inevitably and irresistibly to the sun and light of Arles. It would be well to remember that Vincent's self-congratulatory report to Bernard in June also contains other fallacious boasts, such as Vincent's claim that he was preoccupied with tonal art in Holland because of "acquaintances in Holland in the category of painters like Mauve, Israëls," which he no doubt hoped Bernard would convey to Gauguin, the object of his obsession.

Context:
BVG 481, 5/3/1888: "And if I must tell you roughly what I figure it would take to get me quite well and acclimatized for good, it will mean a year, and to set me up completely, a cool thousand francs."
JLB 603, 5/4/1888: "And if I have to mention the big subject, by my calculations to be in good health and be acclimatized here once and for all I'll need a year, and to establish myself I'll need a good thousand francs."

Context:
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "Now, I approve of your idea of settling Bing's account, and I'm sending you back fifty francs for that purpose."

This was, apparently, a trap of Vincent's own making. He himself had asked Theo to go to Tanguy's and order him fresh supplies of paint -- a lapse of memory or judgment that he instantly regrets: "I regret having wished to get colours from him again to please him, he can expect that in future I won't get any more from him" (ibid.). He is also horrified to hear that Theo has given Tanguy some of his more recent paintings as security on the obligation, and he urges his brother to return to the store and reclaim the works: "I beg you to take back my new paintings. ... Leave Tanguy the study he has of Asnières -- a bank of the Seine. It's his, if it comes to it -- but kick him out afterwards -- and without mercy." (ibid.) The bitterness of this last bit of advice takes one aback.

Context:
JLB 637, 7/8/1888 or 7/9/1888: "Bear in mind that you're dealing with the Tanguy woman -- and if not, if HE behaves like that then it's the case that he's dealing dishonestly towards me. Tanguy still has a study of mine that he thought he could sell. I owe him it, if it comes to it, but I don't owe him a sou in money." (Emphasis in original.)

The unavoidable conclusion is that, as of mid- to late 1887, Theo thought that Vincent's work was not yet good enough to show, and the talk of "compromising" himself was purely to appease his fragile and defensive brother. That is also the most obvious inference from a letter that Theo wrote his sister Wil immediately after Vincent left Paris, in which he speaks very appreciatively of his brother's knowledge of and commitment to art (and reassures her about Vincent's ultimate reputational success), but studiously avoids complimenting the work itself: "I am sure that if he still has a few years to live, he will make a name for himself. I have gotten to know many painters through him as he is very well thought of in their circles. He is one of the champions of new ideas." (b0914 V/1962, ''Gogh, Theo van'' to ''Gogh, Willemina van'', 2/24/1888.)

Context:
BVG 462, 6/21/1887-9/22/1887: "I wish above all I were less of a burden to you -- and that needn't be impossible from now on, for I hope to make such progress that you'll be able to show what I do in full confidence without compromising yourself."
JLB 572, 7/23/1887-7/25/1887: "Most of all, I'd like to be less of a burden to you -- and that's not impossible from now on. Because I hope to make progress in such a way that you'll be able to show what I'm doing, with confidence, without compromising yourself."

The circumstantial evidence, however, weighs heavily against Gauguin's dating, if not his colorful description. It is true that a number of artists whom Vincent met in his first year in Paris also knew Gauguin at or about the time Vincent met them. Vincent's Cormon classmate John Peter Russell met Gauguin in the winter of 1886-87, as Vincent recalls in a letter to Russell from Arles: "Do you remember the time when, almost simultaneously, you I think first and I afterwards, met our friend Gauguin?" (JLB 849, 2/1/1890). This cryptic reference is the strongest hint of an encounter between Vincent and Gauguin in the winter of 1886-87, but, as Welsh-Ovcharov points out, Russell and Gauguin were not good friends and thus the meeting, if it took place, would have been merely social and en passant (Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 56, n. 28). A. S. Hartrick, who stayed in Russell's apartment in 1886, met Gauguin that same summer in Pont-Aven. Signac, with whom Vincent painted in Asnières on at least several occasions in the spring of 1887 (see Chapter 27) was already friends with Gauguin at that time (indeed, Signac agreed to let Gauguin use his studio that same spring, igniting a famous spat with Seurat). Pissarro, who frequented the rue Lepic apartment, had known Gauguin since the 1870s (Gray, p. 27). Bernard, like Hartrick, met him at Pont-Aven in the summer of 1886, a year before joining the frères Van Gogh circle, but their first encounter was frosty and a friendship did not develop until the following year. Guillaumin knew Gauguin, too (ibid., p. 30).

The fact that none of these artists, apparently, bothered to introduce Vincent to Gauguin may speak to their lack of closeness with Vincent, or their opinion of either man, or perhaps a sense of their fundamental incompatibility (as ably described by Rewald). Or it may simply be a matter of timing. Gauguin traveled often and extensively and lighted in Paris only for brief periods during the years that Vincent spent there. Based on Gauguin's letters to his wife, Welsh-Ovcharov has persuasively limned the narrow window in Gauguin's calendar in the winter of 1886-87 during which he could have met Vincnet: "Gauguin did not return from his 'summer' at Pont-Aven until mid-November [1886], ... between then and December 26 he spent twenty-seven days in a hospital and was otherwise occupied with caring for his son Clovis and producing ceramic pottery ... Émile Schuffenecker alone is mentioned among artist friends before departing for Panama in April [1887] with Charles Laval. Minimally, these letters reduce to a period of only the first three months of 1887 for Gauguin's possible contact with Vincent before the former returned in late November of the same year from Martinique." (Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 24.)

While it can never be proved that the two artists did not encounter each other prior to Gauguin's return from Martinique in November 1887 (at Russell's or Tanguy's, for example), and Vincent certainly knew something about Gauguin from common acquaintances like Bernard, Guillaumin, and the Pissarros (see Mathews, p. 93), and he had seen Gauguin's paintings at exhibitions (Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 27, n. 33), the conclusion is inescapable that they did not share any meaningful artistic or personal connection before late 1887, and this appears to be the general consensus view in the more recent literature (see, e.g., Silverman, p. 431). The conjecture that Vincent's hanging at Le Tambourin included works by Gauguin, however, is baseless. Although he did paint two paintings that included tambourines in 1886, and these might have hung in the tavern at some point, they were not part of Vincent's project (Oberthur, p. 56).

Similarly, any suggestion that Gauguin participated in the hanging at the Du Chalet in November 1887 is without foundation. While there is evidence that Gauguin went to see the Du Chalet show, there is no evidence that he met either Vincent or Theo there. Indeed, the first confirmed intersection between Gauguin and either Van Gogh brother is a dinner at the home of Gauguin's friend, collector, and fellow painter Schuffenecker (Stolwijk and Thomson, p. 44). This dinner did not take place until mid-December and there is no indication that Vincent attended.

The question really is not whether Vincent and Gauguin met before November 1887, it is whether they had any substantial contact thereafter: that is, prior to both artists' departure from Paris in February 1888. Despite many confident conjectures in the literature (e.g., Druick: "Gauguin met Theo and Vincent in November, at either the Montmartre gallery or the Petit Boulevard exhibition, or both" [Druick, p. 81]; and Mathews: "Vincent's unalloyed approval ... brought out the best in Gauguin" [Matthews, p. 98]), the evidence for such encounters is slender. They did exchange paintings sometime after the Du Chalet show (JLB 640, 7/15/1888; one of Vincent's sunflower paintings Two Sunflowers [F 375 JH 1329]) for a Martinique painting of naked native girls), but that transaction could have been executed through an intermediary like Bernard, without a face-to-face encounter. On the other hand, Theo did become quickly and heavily involved with Gauguin and his work in late December and January (see Ch 29, n. 807), and it is difficult to imagine that Vincent could have watched this burst of activity and remained on the sidelines. Gauguin could be charming as well as belligerent when he chose, and his tales of sexual exotica would undoubtedly have been enticing to Vincent as well as Theo.

Like Bernard, Gauguin may have seen friendliness toward the difficult Vincent as a favor to Theo, the real target of his ambitions. Artistically, however, the two artists were headed in different directions at the time. Gauguin, whose reputation was primarily as an innovative but "veteran" Impressionist (Jampoller, p. 32), was still working in a relatively "unadventurous" impressionist idiom (Stolwijk and Thomson, p. 137) -- which explains Theo's interest in his work -- while Vincent was competely wrapped up in Bernard's and Anquetin's Japanese-influenced "cloisonnist" imagery. This would argue against speculation in the literature that Vincent brought Gauguin's work to Theo's attention (Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh: His Paris Period, 1886-1888, p. 25).

In fact, Gauguin needed no help in bringing his work to the attention of prospective dealers and collectors and, like Bernard, he recognized quickly the commercial advantages of showing on Goupil's entresol (see Ch. 29, n. 807). Also, Vincent's later claim to Bernard that he had considered going to Pont-Aven with Gauguin in February (JLB 628, 6/19/1888) was undoubtedly just another manifestation of Vincent's delusion of solidarity with an artist he barely knew but who had won his brother's commercial backing. The various efforts to put Vincent and Gauguin together in a meaningful way, either before or after the latter's return to Paris in November 1887, have the effect, if not the intent, of blunting the strangeness of Vincent's campaign the following year (1888) to bring Gauguin to Arles. The more the Frenchman was a stranger to Vincent (which we believe he was) the more delusional Vincent appears in his enthusiasm for, optimism about, and manic anticipation of the "combination" with Gauguin. 311. earned a coveted place For a basically cautious man, Theo moved with astonishing speed in supporting Gauguin's work after his return from Martinique in November 1887. This may be a reflection of Gauguin's considerable charm and his concerted effort to win Theo's favor. (He wrote his wife that Boussod & Valadon had now become "the center of the impressionists" and that he had "great hopes" for his relationship with Theo" [Gauguin, quoted in Rewald, p. 68].) Theo may also have been reassured by Gauguin's standing among other artists (he had exhibited with the Impressionists) as well as the relative conventionality of his imagery at the time, which made its exotic subject matter more palatable -- more "saleable" in Theo's parlance. As a practical dealer, Theo may also have been attracted by the range of media in which Gauguin worked (ceramics and wood in addition to paintings), an advantage for reaching collectors at different price ranges. (According to Stolwijk and Thomson: "Theo probably considered his relations with Gauguin as simply another part of his phased business strategy" [Stolwijk and Thomson, p. 137].)

It is unlikely that Theo moved so quickly because of the enthusiasm of his brother Vincent for Gauguin's work, which was very different from Vincent's at the time, and from his favorites Bernard and Anquetin. Later, Vincent would profess a great love of Gauguin's art, but only in the context of his campaign to win Theo's support for bringing Gauguin to Arles. He seems to have followed his brother in his admiration for Gauguin, not led him (see Chapter 31). The exchange of paintings after the Du Chalet show could easily have been the product of Vincent doing his part to support the brothers' "joint enterprise" (and prove the value of his own work) intersecting with Gauguin's desire to win Theo's favor. Whatever his reasons, Theo lavished attention and money on the forty-year-old Gauguin that had to be the envy of his neglected brother. He showed nine of his works, including both paintings and ceramics (see Druick, p. 82), on the entresol in late December and early January; he bought one painting (Among the Mangoes) for his own collection and two more works on behalf of Boussod & Valadon in January, for a total of 900 francs. The same month, he put more of Gauguin's works on display along with those of Degas, Guillaumin, and Pissarro (Mathews, p. 94-95). According to Mathews, Gauguin was "stunned" by the instant success of his liaison with Theo, and it was this success that drove him back to Pont-Aven in February in search of new imagery (ibid.).

Dozens of artists, known and unknown, responded. The literature has fulfilled its role as ruthless editor by leaving only the names of Van Gogh, Signac, and Seurat attached to the slimly-documented exhibition at the Théâtre-Libre in late 1887. Seurat, in fact, had a studio next door to the theater and may have been acting as much out of neighborliness as anything. Where Seurat went, Signac followed. The names of the other contributors -- "those young people who sometimes paint or sculpt" (see Ch. 29, n. 314) -- are far more obscure, as indeed Vincent's name was at the time. Although the artistic bent of the theater's founder, André Antoine, favored the Symbolists (the name of the company drew on the Symbolists' distinctive poetic form, vers libre), the theater's co-founder and chief publicist, Paul Alexis, championed Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism (Trublot, in Stein, ed., p. 96). With such a broad mandate and so many walls to fill, the works on display must have numbered in the hundreds and the contributors, perhaps, in the "scores" rather than the text's "dozens." The theater was, in fact, a prominent avant-garde gathering spot. In his journal, in October 1887, Edmond de Goncourt recorded that "Zola passes every evening at the Théâtre Libre." (De Goncourt, p. 246). According to Rewald, De Goncourt himself, "whom [Vincent] revered," also came to the theater (Rewald, Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin, pp. 64-65). However promising the clientele, the "exhibition" was a bust, at least for Vincent. None of his work sold.

Context:
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "At the same time as the drawings that I have on the go I'll send you two lithographs by De Lemud, 'Wine' and 'Coffee'; in 'Wine' there's a Mephisto character who makes you think a little of C.M. when younger, and in Coffee -- it's absolutely Raoul -- you know that perpetual old bohemian student type whom I knew last year."

According to Conrad, absinthe had a reputation as a fever preventative (Conrad, p. 6), an anti-depressant (ibid., p. 33), and an aphrodisiac (ibid., p. 47). ("Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder," quipped the poet Ernest Dowson [quoted in ibid., p. 38].) Its other reputed benefits were less tangible, but no less attractive. Oscar Wilde, a confirmed addict, said absinthe "has the power of the magicians; it can wipe out or renew the past, and annul or foretell the future" (ibid., p. 36). Edmond de Goncourt compared its addictiveness and toxicity to that of religion, calling it "paradise in a glass; a true source of comfort where thoughts will give birth to a new and beautiful life, and where your soul will be discovered anew for an hour or two" (De Goncourt, quoted in Oberthur, p. 11). Modern science has identified absinthe's unique chemistry and explained its exhilarating but corrosive effects, but the dangers it posed were only just beginning to enter the public consciousness in the mid-1880s. It wasn't until the turn of the century that absinthe addiction became a recognized public-health threat and the drink was widely banned (Conrad, p. 51).

Context:
BVG 489, 5/20/1888: "It is precisely that sense of stupefaction that I'm getting rid of. I do not feel so much need of distraction, I am less harassed by my passions, and I can work more calmly, I could be alone without getting bored."
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: "It's just my stupefaction that's going away, I don't feel as much need to amuse myself, I'm less at the mercy of my passions and I can work more calmly, I could be alone without being bored."

Context:
BVG 474, 4/9/1888: "The air here certainly does me good. I wish you could fill your lungs with it; one effect it has on me is comical enough -- one small glass of brandy makes me tipsy here, so that as I don't have to fall back on stimulants to make my blood circulate, there will be less strain on my constitution."
JLB 594, 4/9/1888: "The air here is definitely doing me good, I could wish you deep lungfuls of it. One of its effects is quite funny, one small glass of cognac goes to my head down here, so without having recourse to stimulants to get my blood circulating, my constitution won't be taxed so much all the same."

Hulsker mounts a bizarrely vehement and uncharacteristically ad hominem defense against Arnold's "charges" (Hulsker, pp. 80-81) that Vincent was an alcoholic (ibid., pp. 401-402). Both Arnold's argument and, even more so, Hulsker's response tend to conflate two issues: Vincent's addiction specifically to absinthe, with its short-term psychotropic and long-term health effects; and Vincent's more general addiction to alcohol. While the evidence for the former is slender and inferential, the evidence for the latter is, in our opinion, overwhelming and direct. Arnold marshals smartly Vincent's many admissions to excessive drinking. Even if one were to step back from a modern diagnosis of "alcoholism" (which most of the literature does, referring only to Vincent's "drinking heavily" [e.g., Rewald, p. 69], but we do not), Hulsker would not be satisfied. He does not even allow that Vincent had a "drinking problem" (as he delicately terms it) -- a position so counter to the weight of evidence that it undermines all his other arguments on his subject's behalf.

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: "When I left you at the station to go South, very miserable, almost an invalid and almost a drunkard."
JLB 694, 10/3/1888: "When I left you at the Gare du Midi, very upset and almost ill and almost an alcoholic ..."

Context:
BVG 544a, 10/3/1888: "When I left Paris I was in a sorry state, quite ill and almost an alcoholic after driving myself on even while my strength was failing me."
JLB 695, 10/3/1888: "… when I left Paris very, very upset, quite ill and almost an alcoholic through overdoing it, while my strength was abandoning me -- then I withdrew into myself, and without daring to hope yet."

Context:
BVG 576, 2/3/1889: "Still, once you've had the local disease, you'll never catch it again."
JLB 745, 2/3/1889: "But if you catch the local sickness, my word, afterwards you won't be able to catch it again."

Context:
BVG W1, 6/21/1887-12/21/1887: " Enjoy yourself too much rather than too little, and don't take art and love too seriously -- there is very little one can do about it, it is mainly a question of temperament."
JLB 574, October 1887: " Enjoy yourself too much rather than too little, and don't take art or love too seriously either -- one can do little about it oneself, it's mostly a matter of temperament."

Context:
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: "What you write about your visit to Gruby has upset me, but at the same time it reassures me that you went there. Have you considered that your lethargy -- a feeling of extreme lassitude -- could have been caused by this heart condition, and that in that case potassium iodide couldn't be blamed for these periods of stupefied exhaustion? If you remember how stupefied I was myself this winter, to the point of being quite incapable! of doing anything whatsoever, apart from a little painting, although I wasn't taking potassium iodide at all. So if I were you, I'd have it out with Rivet if Gruby tells you not to take it."

Context:
BVG 489, 5/20/1888: "Did you notice Gruby's face when he shuts his mouth tight and says -- 'No women!'?"
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: "Have you seen Gruby's face when he pinches his lips tight and says ' No women?'" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 544a, 10/3/1888: ""When you left Paris, my brother and I stayed on together for a time, which will always remain an unforgettable memory for me.""
JLB 695, 10/3/1888: "When you left Paris, my brother and I spent more time there together that will always remain unforgettable to me."

This account is so drenched in melodrama and self-celebration that it is difficult to take any of it seriously. Nevertheless, the part about Vincent putting up crépons "so that my brother will feel that I am still with him," has become a sentimental favorite of Vincent's biographers. The only independent verification comes indirectly in a letter from Vincent to Theo the following July in which he heatedly defends his expenditures at Bing's in a variety of ways, one of which is this: "Your apartment wouldn't be what it is without the constant presence of Japanese prints" (JLB 640, 7/15/1888). Decorating with Japanese prints was hardly a novel or idiosyncratic idea, so the fact that "Japanese prints" adorned the walls on the rue Lepic does not necessarily mean that Vincent put them there. Bernard's story also implies that Vincent's mania for crépons was a subject that elicited fond fraternal feelings in Theo, whereas, in fact, Theo was not as enthusiastic about collecting the prints as Vincent. One can more easily picture the other part of Bernard's story: Vincent arranging his studio, and perhaps other rooms in the apartment, to display the paintings of his that he knew Theo liked.

This sudden burst of invocations (after six months of virtual silence) and their studied casualness suggest Vincent is pursuing a new strategy of persuasion in relation to his campaign to bring Gauguin to Arles. In late October, he writes Theo explaining how these pieces fit together: "Ah, my dear brother, if I could do such a thing, or if Gauguin and I together could do such things that Seurat would join us! But in my opinion, at the very least we must reckon his large paintings of the models and the Grande Jatte but -- let's see -- at 5,000 each" (JLB 710, 10/22/1888). Vincent has apparently convinced himself, and now hopes to convince Theo, that if Gauguin joins him in Arles, they will be able to attract artists as significant as Seurat to his dream of a "combination of artists." He imagines that the painter of the Grand Jatte will contribute major works to the cause and thus allow Theo to recoup his investment (which Vincent has calculated at 10,000 francs in "a nominal contribution" [ibid.]). Vincent admits sheepishly, "I don't calculate in figures but in feelings" (ibid.). That his calculations are the product of a persuasive delusion rather than artistic conviction (or, certainly, business sense) seems confirmed when Seurat's name virtually disappears from his correspondence after Gauguin leaves Arles at the end of 1888. In May 1890, two months before his death, Vincent mentions the visit to Seurat's studio again, this time as an invocation of artistic solidarity with his brother: "But -- strange thing again that, just as that day we were so struck by Seurat's canvases, these last days here are once again like a revelation of colour to me" (JLB 870, 5/11/1890).

Context:
JLB 695, 10/3/1888: "When you left Paris, my brother and I spent more time there together that will always remain unforgettable to me. Our discussions took on a broader scope -- with Guillaumin, with Pissaro, father and son, with Seurat, whom I didn't know (I visited his studio just a few hours before my departure)."

Context:
JLB 603, 5/4/1888: "My poor friend, our neurosis &c. surely also comes from our rather too artistic way of life -- but it's also a fatal inheritance, since in civilization we go on becoming weaker from generation to generation ... if we want to look the true state of our temperament in the face we have to range ourselves among those who suffer from a neurosis that goes back a good long way."

Context:
JLB 831, 12/23/1889: "And when Pa was no longer with us and I went to him in Paris, then the poor chap attached himself so much to me that I came to understand how much he had loved Pa. And now, I say this to you and to Wil and not to him, it's a good thing I didn't stay in Paris because we should, he and I, have become all too much bound up in each other."

Context:
BVG W2, 2/28/1888: "So for one reason or another I thought I should do nobody harm if I went to the spot that attracted me."
JLB 579, 2/24/1888: "So I thought for one reason and another that I wouldn't do anyone any harm if I just went to what attracted me."

We have translated the last sentence of this passage ("Als ik zou vastlopen in m'n pogingen, zou me dat absoluut niets kunnen schelen") differently from Bonger who read it in this somewhat nonsensical way: "If I come to grief myself in the attempt, it would do me no harm." A more literal translation would be, "If I were to dash myself in this effort, then that would absolutely not matter to me." The clearly-intended emphasis here (not captured by Bonger) is that Vincent would only be hurting himself, not his brother, if his attempt failed.

Context:
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "I don't know if you've ever read Les frères Zemganno by the De Goncourts, who perhaps loosely retrace their own history. If you know it, you'll know, more than I'd know how to express to you, that I fear that the effort of obtaining money for us will be too exhausting for you."

Context:
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888; JLB 710, 10/22/1888: "If myself I were to break myself down in the effort, it would mean absolutely nothing to me."

Context:
JLB 831, 12/23/1889: "And when Pa was no longer with us and I went to him in Paris, then the poor chap attached himself so much to me that I came to understand how much he had loved Pa. And now, I say this to you and to Wil and not to him, it's a good thing I didn't stay in Paris because we should, he and I, have become all too much bound up in each other."