PARISThe ten years of van Gogh’s life as a committed artist can be dividedneatly into two periods: from 1880 until 1885 when he worked and livedmostly in Holland, and from 1886–1890 when he lived and worked inFrance, where he died. From 1886–1888, he and Theo shared an apartmentin Paris and there was no need for any correspondence. In the absenceof any letters, we have only indirect knowledge of a somewhat turbulentperiod (de Leeuw, 1997, p. 325).Van Gogh arrived in Paris at a time of some dissatisfaction with hisown work, centering on his use of color, which he considered too lim-ited, too dark, and too morose. He believed that he had gone as far as hewanted to in the use of dark colors and chiaroscuro and the extension of theprinciples of the Dutch school, represented by Rembrandt and Hals. Theohad described the experimental work of the Impressionists to Vincent andVincent was curios to see what these people were doing. As an art dealer,Theo had personal contact with the leading Parisian artists of the day,and was able to introduce them to Vincent. Van Gogh had come to Paristo join the Corman atelier and learn what he could. There he met ́EmileBernard (with whom he established an extended collaboration), Toulouse-Lautrec, and the Australian John Peter Russell. He also met Paul Signac,with whom he exchanged ideas regarding technique, and compared anddiscussed each other’s work. Together, they worked out a system in whichvarious techniques were coded and designed to represent different sur-faces or objects. Dots, for example, represented objects such as roads, treesor water near the horizon. Undulating lines represented turbulent skies orswirling water in the foreground. Dashes represented mid-distance objects,such as a road midway between the foreground and the horizon.As de Leeuw (1997) points out, van Gogh must have been amazed,when he came to Paris, to see how out of touch his own method of work-ing was with that of his leading contemporaries. He adopted the colortheories of the Impressionists and also changed the subject matter of hiswork, painting the streets and caf ́es that surrounded him. His Paris sojournbecame “a new term of apprenticeship” (p. 327).ARLESThe Arles period (December 1887–December 1888) was punctuatedby the two-month period, November and December 1888, when he andPaul Gauguin lived and worked together.In February of 1888, van Gogh left Paris for Arles, a relatively smalltown in Provence in southern France. He longed for sun and warmth, for