phase as an artist, was Anton Mauve, himself an eminent artist. Mauvehad married into the Van Gogh family so he was not only known to vanGogh as someone who knew much more about art than he, but as some-one who might also be more readily available as a teacher because of thefamily connection. So from Mauve he learned basic skills and technique,especially in drawing and water-coloring. He wrote to Theo about:a drawing . . . made at Mauve’s studio, and really the best watercolorI had, especially because Mauve had put some touches in it, and hadwatched me make it and drawn my attention to some points. (Stone,p. 135)ThereweremanyotherartistswhomvanGoghlookedupto:Leonardoda Vinci, from whom he learned how to sequence his early learning–drawing, perspective, understanding the proportions of an object, copy-ing from a master, and so on; what he learned from da Vinci, becamepart of van Gogh’s organization of knowledge (Gruber, 1989). He learnedfrom Rembrandt (especially chiaroscuro); and from Gauguin whose im-pasto technique (the thick application of paint), he admired and used.In Daumier, he found confirmation of his love of depicting the commonperson. From Millet he found inspiration, and copied and later paintedcopies of Millet’s work. From the Japanese artist Hokusai, he learned touse line in dynamic ways. Van Gogh’s admiration of Rembrandt and Milletwent beyond composition and technique; the emotions expressed by thesepainters’ works also provided a model for what van Gogh wanted to ex-press emotionally in his own works. He knew the work of all these artistsand knew he needed their knowledge by gauging what they had that hewanted to emulate in his own work in his own way.Sometimes, the variety and many-layered impact of such figuressurely included a process of “trying-on” the actual work of the admiredartist by copying, or drawing or paintingin the manner ofthat person. Thisis both an attempt at mastery as well as a testing out of what it feels like to“be” that artist. It may provide a special experience in artistic developmentthat enables the person to learn from and assimilate these new knowledgeexperiences selectively.Apart from copying them, van Gogh routinely looked at and ana-lyzed the works of great artists. In Paris he often visited the Louvre andconstantly went to exhibitions showing the work of contemporary artists.While Gauguin was in Arles, van Gogh and he regularly visited nearbymuseums to see and discuss the art of others. This, of course, is a commonactivity among nearly all creative people—the need to re-view existingproducts in their field to learn or re-learn; and the need to compare theirown work with that of their contemporaries

 painted three more large canvases. They are vast stretches of wheatunder troubled skies, and I didn’t have to put myself out very much inorder to try and express sadness and extreme loneliness. (NYGS, 1978,Letter 649 c.10 July, 1890.)Van Gogh shot and wounded himself among those wheat fields onJuly 27, 1890. Theo was summoned and his brother seemed to be improvingwhen he fell into a coma and died in Theo’s presence on July 29.4VAN GOGH’S SOCIAL INTERACTIONSAND 

COMPARISONSAt

 the beginning of this chapter I introduced social comparison theoryand three of its constructs—upward comparison, downward comparison,and lateral comparison. I now want to consider how these comparisoncategories can be applied to van Gogh’s development as an artist and aperson.Upward Social ComparisonOne does not have to know the people one compares oneself with;indeed, they can be distant strangers or long dead. Nevertheless, it is clearthat van Gogh’s years as a fully committed artist were richly populatedwith other artists and members of the art world. In a letter to Theo, vanGogh asked how anyone can learn if no-one shows the way. With all thebest intentions in the world, one cannot succeed without coming intocontact with artists who are more advanced. (NYGS, 1978, Letter 138,November, 1980.)This letter expresses the need for knowledge of a neophyte. Actually,van Gogh was not exactly such a neophyte since, as in many respects anautodidact, he had been sketching for many years on his own. He ad-mired many artists, some of whom became important influences at dif-ferent points in his own development. The first of these, in his formative4It is important to remember that the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and Neo-Impressionists are considered as groups, as if the work in each group was somehow thesame. In fact, members in each group had in common only that they lived and worked atabout the same and applied a novel set of principles to their work. But each member of eachgroup had a unique voice and style and when we see or think of the work of van Gogh,Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Bonnard—all post-impressionists—it is their differencesthat strike us rather than their similarities

 These are the comments of a keen objective intelligence; and theyreflect van Gogh the painter as well: combining dispassionate observationand analysis with the emotional expression of subjective experience.Van Gogh produced many masterpieces at this time. Sadly, he had an-other attack in July and could not return to work until August. By Septem-ber he was more cheerful and wrote to Theo:My work is going very well, I am finding things that I have sought invain for years, and feeling this, I am always thinking of that saying ofDelacroix’s that you know, namely that he discovered painting whenhe no longer had any breath or teeth left. (NYGS, 1978, Letter 605, 10September 1889.)At this point, his skills were such that he could rapidly produce arendition of a work in the style of Delacroix. He wrote “if you could see meworking, my brain so clear and my fingers so sure that I have drawn that‘Pieta’ by Delacroix without taking a single measurement” (Letter 605, 10September 1889).Theo sent his brother reproductions of paintings by Rembrandt, Milletand Delacroix, which Vincent used as the basis for his own work, no longercopying but “painting” them. During this period he produced some of hisfinest painting. The image of the miner was still perhaps a central one forvan Gogh; but it now took on a different guise in view of his own illnessso that he saw himself “like a miner who is always in danger [and] makeshaste in what he does.” (NYGS, 1978, Letter 610, 1889).In December of 1889, van Gogh had another attack followed by stillanother in January of 1990 and a third a few weeks later. During his lastweek in Saint R ́emy, he finished four still lifes with flowers. He had alreadytold Theo that he wanted to move to Auvers. In Saint R ́emy, where he hadlived for a year, he was overwhelmed by “boredom and grief” (de Leeuw,1997, p. 485). He went to Auvers-sur-Oise via Paris because he wanted tomeet his new sister-in-law who had recently married Theo, as well as theirson, named after Vincent. Johanna van Gogh was surprised to see not a sickman but a “sturdy broad-shouldered man, with a healthy colour, a smile onhis face and a very resolute appearance” (de Leeuw, 1997, p. 488). Van Goghwas very happy to see Theo and Theo’s family but he worried about hisbrother’s chronic cough. He left Paris after three days and went to Auverswhere he was put in the care of Dr. Gachet, a psychiatrist, homeopathicphysician and amateur artist.Van Gogh’s output during what would be the last two months of hislife was remarkable. In July, he wrote to Theo:

 SAINT-R ́EMY AND AUVERS-SUR-OISE

 Van Gogh closed out the final 14 months of his life in St. R ́emy, wherehe lived in a mental institution, being treated for seizures, and in Auvers-sur-Oise, where he was in the care of Dr. Paul Gachet. At the mental hospitalin Saint R ́emy, he continued to paint, except when he was having an attack.He never worked during such episodes and never put brush to canvas untilhe was completely recovered. Since there were plenty of empty rooms inthe asylum, he was given an additional room in which to work. In May,1889, he wrote Theo that “myfearof madness is wearing off markedly.”In the same letter, he takes comfort from what he learns and sees in theasylum:I am so grateful for yet another thing. I’ve noticed that others, too,hear sounds and strange voices during their attacks, as I did, and thatthings seemed to change before their very eyes. And that lessened thehorror with which I remembered my first attack, something that, whenit comes upon you unexpectedly, cannot but frighten you terribly. Onceyou know it is part of the illness, you accept it like anything else (NYGS,1978, Letter 592, 22 May, 1889)

 Vincent apparently had had some kind of a seizure or psychoticepisode. Allegedly, he seemed dazed and bewildered, and perhaps drunk,when he appeared at the brothel. The injury to his ear had severed an artery.He returned home and the police, summoned by people at the brothel,found him in bed the next morning. He had lost an enormous amount ofblood.Van Gogh recovered gradually. His depression about what had hap-pened and his fear of another attack weighed on him. But he soon discov-ered that he had not lost his passion for painting and began to paint againin March of 1889. He conjectured that his “attack” may have been broughton by alcohol and even tobacco, but he continued to drink and smoke. Heseemed unable to organize his life and reluctant to set up a studio by him-self. He had lost a lot of his work as a result of floods and damp while hewas in the hospital. He also believed that the loss of his studio, Gauguin’sdeparture, and the end of his ideas of collaborative work with others werehis fault. Theo was worried about his brother’s feelings of guilt and inad-equacy and the possibility of suicide. He constantly tried to reassure himand pointed out that he, Theo, had had a very good year and money wasnot a problem. Vincent considered admitting himself to an asylum, in thehope that further attacks might be prevented.

 the painting fully worked out before touching the canvas, emphasizingmemory and its imaginative translation to the canvas. Van Gogh, the real-ist, liked to work “from nature”—the scene in front of him. He also believedthat colors should have psychological significance, and not merely play adecorative role in a painting. Gauguin believed in working slowly and de-liberately; van Gogh believed in going to the main theme of the paintingand working with an exalted rapidity.3Gauguin painted a portrait of Vin-cent to which the latter had a violently negative response “It’s certainlyme but me gone mad” (de Leeuw, 1997, p. 423). A week later, after a loudargument in a caf ́e, van Gogh allegedly threw a glass of absinthe at Gau-guin, an incident that was apparently smoothed over but not forgotten. Ina letter written to Theo in the latter half of December, which included avivid description of a gallery he and Gauguin had visited in Montpelier,van Gogh wrote:Gauguin and I discuss Delacroix, Rembrandt, etc., a great deal. Thedebate isexceedingly electricand sometimes when we finish our mindsare as drained as an electric battery after discharge. (NYGS, 1978, Letter564.)On December 23, van Gogh writes again to Theo, this time a muchbriefer letter:I think that Gauguin was a little disenchanted with the good town ofArles . . . and above all with me...Indeed, there are serious problems toovercome here still, for him as well as for me...Butthese problems liemore in ourselves than anywhere else. In short I think that he’ll eithersimply leave or he’ll simply stay. I’ve told him to think it over andweigh up the pros and cons before doing anything. Gauguin is verystrong, very creative...Iawait his decision with absolute equanimity(NYGS, 1978, Letter 565, 23 December, 1888).This very calm and rational letter was followed the same evening byan emotionally quite different event. Gauguin was taking a walk whenvan Gogh suddenly appeared and threatened him with a razor. Gauguincalmed him down, but decided to stay the night in a local hotel. Later thatnight, van Gogh appeared at the brothel he frequented and asked for aprostitute called Rachel. He gave her a piece of his earlobe which he hadsliced from his ear and asked her to look after it. Police found him the nextmorning unconscious in his bed. This account comes mainly from Gauguinand also, “bit by bit” from van Gogh. (de Leeuw, 1997, pp. 425–426).3Indeed, while he was in Arles, van Gogh painted as many as three paintings a day, some inas little as 45 minutes, according to his accounts; in Paris his swift execution had amazedhis teachers and fellow students

 cooperative of impressionists was ever on van Gogh’s mind. It crops upin letters to Theo, to his fellow artists and to his sister Wil, whether he ismentioning that he had just read a book on the German composer RichardWagner and was interested that Wagner’s ideas about “community” wereso consonant with his own, or complaining of the low social and economicstatus of painters. To Wil he wrote:We live in an unspeakably awful and miserable world for artists. Theexhibitions, the shops selling pictures, everything, everything is in thehands of people who grab all the money. (de Leeuw, 1997, p. 367.)At the same time, these letters are also full of his work—descriptions ofhis paintings, the colors he is using for the various objects, his evaluationof them, his ideas about them and broader artistic issues. He describespainting in the midday heat, how to protect one’s easel from being blownover by the famousmistral(as the seasonal wind is called), how differenthe looked now compared to the man he depicted in a self-portrait he hadpainted in Paris. Everywhere, in these letters, his passion for art is ondisplayAt the end of June 1888, Theo wrote to Vincent that Gauguin had fi-nally agreed to come to Arles and share a house with Vincent. It was notuntil several months later—in October—that Gauguin actually arrived.On October 3rd, 1888 van Gogh wrote to Gauguin and told him how as heworked he had still been thinking of the two of them “setting up a studio”together (de Leeuw, 1997, p. 412). He also said that he was working fever-ishly. Indeed, he was worn out and forced to rest for a few days. Eventually,the intense pace of his activities in summer and autumn exhausted him somuch that “he felt he was ‘reduced once more close to the deranged stateof Hugo van der Goes in the painting by ́Emile Wauters’” (de Leeuw, 1997,p. 416). Considering what was to come, this remark was prescient.Gauguin eventually arrived on October 23. He stayed exactly nineweeks. In a letter to Theo, Vincent seemed weighed down by his debt tohis brother and by the fact that his paintings were not selling. He notedthat Gauguin’s arrival had turned his mind away from the feeling that hewas going to be ill.At first the two painters worked well together. They painted the samelocal people, spent evenings out together in a cafe, went to a local brotheltogether and, under Gauguin’s influence, van Gogh even painted someworks from memory. But there were fundamental differences between thetwo, and they argued endlessly and disagreed about basic issues in art andthe functioning and purposes of the artist. Each had very strong opinionsabout how the artist should work. Gauguin believed that a work shouldbe conceived as a whole before it was begun and he advised others to have