ons into which Monet was heading and which seemed the inevitable limit of Impressionist techniques. Van Gogh thought it was the color, not the form, that determined the expressive content of his pictures. Three painters of genius emerged, overlapping the Impressionists in time and manner, whose names have become synonymous with the post-Impressionists movement: Cezanne, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Between them they set European painting on a path which turned Impressionism into something solid and durable, like the art of the museums, a return in effect, to the main stream, but with minds alight with discovery and purpose. These three, as well as Mile Bernard who was a friend of van Gogh, all believed in the importance of color! to express the state of mind of the model represented. Work of the Post-Impressionists reveals a freely expressive use of color and form. In 1888, while living at Arles, he began to use the swirling brush strokes and intense yellows, greens, and blues. He loved bright colors especially yellow because of the sun which was bright in southern France and he painted what he saw and felt. He painted in colors with bright hues and high value. Vincent would sometimes put paints on his canvas with his palette knife or right from the tube and mix it around with his fingers which would make it quite coarse. In Arles he attached the greatest importance to his portraits, although he also painted many landscapes. Later, in 1890, he devoted his main energy to landscape painting. In southern France van Gogh lived for a time with Paul Gauguin, whom he had met in Paris. But after two months they had violent arguments, culminating in a quarrel in which van Gogh threatened Gauguin with a razor. The same night, in a deep remorse, van Gogh cut off part of his own ear. This episode marked the beginning of a periodic insanity that plagued him until his death. On May 8, 1889, he was admitted to St. Rmy Hospital as...
