Ancestry

Maria Fyodorovna Dostoyevskaya

Mikhail Andreyevich Dostoyevsky

Dostoyevsky's parents were part of a multi-ethnic and multi-denominational noble

family, its branches including Russian Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and
Eastern Catholics.[3] The family traced its roots back to a Tatar, Aslan Chelebi-Murza,
who in 1389 defected from the Golden Horde and joined the forces of Dmitry
Donskoy, the first prince of Muscovy to openly challenge the Mongol authority in the
region,[4] and whose descendent, Daniil Irtych, was ennobled and given lands in the
Pinsk region (for centuries part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, now in modern-day
Belarus) in 1509 for his services under a local prince, his progeny then taking the
name "Dostoyevsky" based on a village there called Dostoevo.[5]

Dostoyevsky's immediate ancestors on his mother's side were merchants; the male
line on his father's side were priests.[6][7] His father, Mikhail, was expected to join the
clergy but instead ran away from home and broke with the family permanently.[8]

In 1809, the 20-year-old Mikhail Dostoyevsky enrolled in Moscow's Imperial

Medical-Surgical Academy. From there he was assigned to a Moscow hospital, where
he served as military doctor, and in 1818, he was appointed a senior physician. In
1819 he married Maria Nechayeva. The following year, he took up a post at the
Mariinsky Hospital for the poor. After the birth of his first two sons, Mikhail and
Fyodor, he was promoted to collegiate assessor, a position which raised his legal
status to that of the nobility and enabled him to acquire a small estate in Darovoye, a
town about 150 km (100 miles) from Moscow, where the family usually spent the
summers.[9] Dostoyevsky's parents subsequently had six more children: Varvara
(182292), Andrei (182597), Lyubov (born and died 1829), Vera (182996), Nikolai
(183183) and Aleksandra (183589).[10][6][7]

Childhood (18211835)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, born on 11 November [O.S. 30 October] 1821, was the second
child of Dr. Mikhail Dostoyevsky and Maria Dostoyevskaya (ne Nechayeva). He
was raised in the family home in the grounds of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor,
which was in a lower class district on the edges of Moscow.[11] Dostoyevsky
encountered the patients, who were at the lower end of the Russian social scale, when
playing in the hospital gardens.[12]

Dostoyevsky was introduced to literature at an early age. From the age of three, he
was read heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends by his nanny, Alena Frolovna, an
especially influential figure in his upbringing and love for fictional stories.[13] When
he was four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His parents
introduced him to a wide range of literature, including Russian writers Karamzin,
Pushkin and Derzhavin; Gothic fiction such as Ann Radcliffe; romantic works by
Schiller and Goethe; heroic tales by Cervantes and Walter Scott; and Homer's
epics.[14][15] Although his father's approach to education has been described as strict
and harsh,[16] Dostoyevsky himself reports that his imagination was brought alive by
nightly readings by his parents.[12]

Some of his childhood experiences found their way into his writings. When a nine-
year-old girl had been raped by a drunk, he was asked to fetch his father to attend to
her. The incident haunted him, and the theme of the desire of a mature man for a
young girl appears in The Devils, The Brothers Karamazov, and other writings.[17] An
incident involving a family servant, or serf, in the estate in Darovoye, is described in
"The Peasant Marey": when the young Dostoyevsky imagines hearing a wolf in the
forest, Marey, who is working nearby, comforts him.[18]

Although Dostoyevsky had a delicate physical constitution, his parents described him
as hot-headed, stubborn and cheeky.[19] In 1833, Dostoyevsky's father, who was
profoundly religious, sent him to a French boarding school and then to the Chermak
boarding school. He was described as a pale, introverted dreamer and an over-
excitable romantic.[20] To pay the school fees, his father borrowed money and
extended his private medical practice. Dostoyevsky felt out of place among his
aristocratic classmates at the Moscow school, and the experience was later reflected in
some of his works, notably The Adolescent.[21][15]

Youth (18361843)
Dostoyevsky as a military engineer

On 27 September 1837 Dostoyevsky's mother died of tuberculosis. The previous May,

his parents had sent Dostoyevsky and his brother Mikhail to St Petersburg to attend
the free Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, forcing the brothers to abandon
their academic studies for military careers. Dostoyevsky entered the academy in
January 1838, but only with the help of family members. Mikhail was refused
admission on health grounds and was sent to the Academy in Reval, Estonia.[22][23]

Dostoyevsky disliked the academy, primarily because of his lack of interest in

science, mathematics and military engineering and his preference for drawing and
architecture. As his friend Konstantin Trutovsky once said, "There was no student in
the entire institution with less of a military bearing than F. M. Dostoyevsky. He
moved clumsily and jerkily; his uniform hung awkwardly on him; and his knapsack,
shako and rifle all looked like some sort of fetter he had been forced to wear for a
time and which lay heavily on him."[24] Dostoyevsky's character and interests made
him an outsider among his 120 classmates: he showed bravery and a strong sense of
justice, protected newcomers, aligned himself with teachers, criticised corruption
among officers and helped poor farmers. Although he was solitary and inhabited his
own literary world, he was respected by his classmates. His reclusiveness and interest
in religion earned him the nickname "Monk Photius".[25][26]

Signs of Dostoyevsky's epilepsy may have first appeared on learning of the death of
his father on 16 June 1839,[27] although the reports of a seizure originated from
accounts written by his daughter (later expanded by Sigmund Freud.[28]) which are
now considered to be unreliable. His father's official cause of death was an apoplectic
stroke, but a neighbour, Pavel Khotiaintsev, accused the father's serfs of murder. Had
the serfs been found guilty and sent to Siberia, Khotiaintsev would have been in a
position to buy the vacated land. The serfs were acquitted in a trial in Tula, but
Dostoyevsky's brother Andrei perpetuated the story.[29] After his father's death,
Dostoyevsky continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of
engineer cadet, entitling him to live away from the academy. He visited Mikhail in
Reval, and frequently attended concerts, operas, plays and ballets. During this time,
two of his friends introduced him to gambling.[30][26]
On 12 August 1843 Dostoyevsky took a job as a lieutenant engineer and lived with
Adolph Totleben in an apartment owned by Dr. Rizenkampf, a friend of Mikhail.
Rizenkampf characterised him as "no less good-natured and no less courteous than his
brother, but when not in a good mood he often looked at everything through dark
glasses, became vexed, forgot good manners, and sometimes was carried away to the
point of abusiveness and loss of self-awareness".[31] Dostoyevsky's first completed
literary work, a translation of Honor de Balzac's novel Eugnie Grandet, was
published in June and July 1843 in the 6th and 7th volume of the journal Repertoire
and Pantheon,[32][33] followed by several other translations. None were successful, and
his financial difficulties led him to write a novel.[34][26]

Career
Early career (18441849)

Dostoyevsky, 1847

Dostoyevsky completed his first novel, Poor Folk, in May 1845. His friend Dmitry
Grigorovich, with whom he was sharing an apartment at the time, took the manuscript
to the poet Nikolay Nekrasov, who in turn showed it to the renowned and influential
literary critic Vissarion Belinsky. Belinsky described it as Russia's first "social
novel".[35] Poor Folk was released on 15 January 1846 in the St Petersburg Collection
almanac and became a commercial success.[36][37]

Dostoyevsky felt that his military career would endanger his now flourishing literary
career, so he wrote a letter asking to resign his post. Shortly thereafter, he wrote his
second novel, The Double, which appeared in the journal Notes of the Fatherland on
30 January 1846, before being published in February. Around the same time,
Dostoyevsky discovered socialism through the writings of French thinkers Fourier,
Cabet, Proudhon and Saint-Simon. Through his relationship with Belinsky he
expanded his knowledge of the philosophy of socialism. He was attracted to its logic,
its sense of justice and its preoccupation with the destitute and the disadvantaged.
However, his relationship with Belinsky became increasingly strained as Belinsky's
atheism and dislike of religion clashed with Dostoyevsky's Russian Orthodox beliefs.
Dostoyevsky eventually parted with him and his associates.[38][39]
After The Double received negative reviews, Dostoyevsky's health declined and he
had more frequent seizures, but he continued writing. From 1846 to 1848 he released
several short stories in the magazine Annals of the Fatherland, including "Mr.
Prokharchin", "The Landlady", "A Weak Heart", and "White Nights". These stories
were unsuccessful, leaving Dostoyevsky once more in financial trouble, so he joined
the utopian socialist Betekov circle, a tightly knit community which helped him to
survive. When the circle dissolved, Dostoyevsky befriended Apollon Maykov and his
brother Valerian. In 1846, on the recommendation of the poet Aleksey
Pleshcheyev,[40] he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, founded by Mikhail Petrashevsky,
who had proposed social reforms in Russia. Mikhail Bakunin once wrote to
Alexander Herzen that the group was "the most innocent and harmless company" and
its members were "systematic opponents of all revolutionary goals and means".[41]
Dostoyevsky used the circle's library on Saturdays and Sundays and occasionally
participated in their discussions on freedom from censorship and the abolition of
serfdom.[42][43]

In 1849, the first parts of Netochka Nezvanova, a novel Dostoyevsky had been
planning since 1846, were published in Annals of the Fatherland, but his banishment
ended the project. Dostoyevsky never attempted to complete it.[44]

Siberian exile (18491854)

A sketch of the Petrashevsky Circle mock execution

The members of the Petrashevsky Circle were denounced to Liprandi, an official at

the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Dostoyevsky was accused of reading works by
Belinsky, including the banned Letter to Gogol, and of circulating copies of these and
other works. Antonelli, the government agent who had reported the group, wrote in
his statement that at least one of the papers criticised Russian politics and religion.
Dostoyevsky responded to these charges by declaring that he had read the essays only
"as a literary monument, neither more nor less"; he spoke of "personality and human
egoism" rather than of politics. Even so, he and his fellow "conspirators" were
arrested on 23 April 1849 at the request of Count A. Orlov and Tsar Nicolas I, who
feared a revolution like the Decembrist revolt of 1825 in Russia and the Revolutions
of 1848 in Europe. The members were held in the well-defended Peter and Paul
Fortress, which housed the most dangerous convicts.[45][46][47]

The case was discussed for four months by an investigative commission headed by
the Tsar, with Adjutant General Ivan Nabokov, senator Count Pavel Gagarin, Count
Vasili Dolgorukov, General Yakov Rostovtsev and General Leonty Dubelt, head of
the secret police. They sentenced the members of the circle to death by firing squad,
and the prisoners were taken to Semyonov Place in St Petersburg on 23 December
1849 where they were split into three-man groups. Dostoyevsky was the third in the
second row; next to him stood Pleshcheyev and Durov. The execution was stayed
when a cart delivered a letter from the Tsar commuting the sentence.

Dostoyevsky served four years of exile with hard labour at a katorga prison camp in
Omsk, Siberia, followed by a term of compulsory military service. After a fourteen-
day sleigh ride, the prisoners reached Tobolsk, a prisoner way station. Despite the
circumstances, Dostoyevsky consoled the other prisoners, such as the Petrashevist
Ivan Yastrzhembsky, who was surprised by Dostoyevsky's kindness and eventually
abandoned his decision to commit suicide. In Tobolsk, the members received food
and clothes from the Decembrist women, as well as several copies of the New
Testament with a ten-ruble banknote inside each copy. Eleven days later,
Dostoyevsky reached Omsk[46][48] together with just one other member of the
Petrashevsky Circle, the poet Sergei Durov.[49] Dostoyevsky described his barracks:

In summer, intolerable closeness; in winter, unendurable cold. All the floors were
rotten. Filth on the floors an inch thick; one could slip and fall ... We were packed like
herrings in a barrel ... There was no room to turn around. From dusk to dawn it was
impossible not to behave like pigs ... Fleas, lice, and black beetles by the bushel ...[50]

Classified as "one of the most dangerous convicts", Dostoyevsky had his hands and
feet shackled until his release. He was only permitted to read his New Testament
bible. In addition to his seizures, he had haemorrhoids, lost weight and was "burned
by some fever, trembling and feeling too hot or too cold every night". The smell of
the privy pervaded the entire building, and the small bathroom had to suffice for more
than 200 people. Dostoyevsky was occasionally sent to the military hospital, where he
read newspapers and Dickens novels. He was respected by most of the other
prisoners, and despised by some because of his xenophobic statements.[51][52]

Release from prison and first marriage (18541866)

After his release on 14 February 1854, Dostoyevsky asked Mikhail to help him
financially and to send him books by Vico, Guizot, Ranke, Hegel and Kant.[53] The
House of the Dead, based on his experience in prison, was published in 1861 in the
journal Vremya it was the first published novel about Russian prisons.[54] Before
moving in mid-March to Semipalatinsk, where he was forced to serve in the Siberian
Army Corps of the Seventh Line Battalion, Dostoyevsky met geographer Pyotr
Semyonov and ethnographer Shokan Walikhanuli. Around November 1854, he met
Baron Alexander Egorovich Wrangel (de), an admirer of his books, who had attended
the aborted execution. They both rented houses in the Cossack Garden outside
Semipalatinsk. Wrangel remarked that Dostoyevsky "looked morose. His sickly, pale
face was covered with freckles, and his blond hair was cut short. He was a little over
average height and looked at me intensely with his sharp, grey-blue eyes. It was as if
he were trying to look into my soul and discover what kind of man I was."[55][56][57]

In Semipalatinsk, Dostoyevsky tutored several schoolchildren and came into contact

with upper-class families, including that of Lieutenant-Colonel Belikhov, who used to
invite him to read passages from newspapers and magazines. During a visit to
Belikhov, Dostoyevsky met the family of Alexander Ivanovich Isaev and Maria
Dmitrievna Isaeva and fell in love with the latter. Alexander Isaev took a new post in
Kuznetsk, where he died in August 1855. Maria and her son then moved with
Dostoyevsky to Barnaul. In 1856 Dostoyevsky sent a letter through Wrangel to
General Eduard Totleben, apologising for his activity in several utopian circles. As a
result, he obtained the right to publish books and to marry, although he remained
under police surveillance for the rest of his life. Maria married Dostoyevsky in
Semipalatinsk on 7 February 1857, even though she had initially refused his marriage
proposal, stating that they were not meant for each other and that his poor financial
situation precluded marriage. Their family life was unhappy and she found it difficult
to cope with his seizures. Describing their relationship, he wrote: "Because of her
strange, suspicious and fantastic character, we were definitely not happy together, but
we could not stop loving each other; and the more unhappy we were, the more
attached to each other we became". They mostly lived apart.[58] In 1859 he was
released from military service because of deteriorating health and was granted
permission to return to Russia, first to Tver, where he met his brother for the first time
in ten years, and then to St Petersburg.[59][60]

Dostoyevsky in Paris, 1863

"A Little Hero" (Dostoyevsky's only work completed in prison) appeared in a journal,
but "Uncle's Dream" and "The Village of Stepanchikovo" were not published until
1860. Notes from the House of the Dead was released in Russky Mir (Russian World)
in September 1860. "The Insulted and the Injured" was published in the new Vremya
(Time) magazine,[c] which had been created with the help of funds from his brother's
cigarette factory.[62][63][64]

Dostoyevsky travelled to western Europe for the first time on 7 June 1862, visiting
Cologne, Berlin, Dresden, Wiesbaden, Belgium, and Paris. In London, he met Herzen
and visited the Crystal Palace. He travelled with Nikolay Strakhov through
Switzerland and several North Italian cities, including Turin, Livorno, and Florence.
He recorded his impressions of those trips in Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, in
which he criticised capitalism, social modernisation, materialism, Catholicism and
Protestantism.[65][66]

From August to October 1863, Dostoyevsky made another trip to western Europe. He
met his second love, Polina Suslova, in Paris and lost nearly all his money gambling
in Wiesbaden and Baden-Baden. In 1864 his wife Maria and brother Mikhail died,
and Dostoyevsky became the lone parent of his stepson Pasha and the sole supporter
of his brother's family. The failure of Epoch, the magazine he had founded with
Mikhail after the suppression of Vremya, worsened his financial situation, although
the continued help of his relatives and friends averted bankruptcy.[67][68]

Second marriage and honeymoon (18661871)

The first two parts of Crime and Punishment were published in January and February
1866 in the periodical The Russian Messenger,[69] attracting at least 500 new
subscribers to the magazine.[70]

Dostoyevsky returned to Saint Petersburg in mid-September and promised his editor,

Fyodor Stellovsky, that he would complete The Gambler, a short novel focused on
gambling addiction, by November, although he had not yet begun writing it. One of
Dostoyevsky's friends, Milyukov, advised him to hire a secretary. Dostoyevsky
contacted stenographer Pavel Olkhin from Saint Petersburg, who recommended his
pupil, the twenty-year-old Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina. Her shorthand helped
Dostoyevsky to complete The Gambler on 30 October, after 26 days' work.[71][72] She
remarked that Dostoyevsky was of average height but always tried to carry himself
erect. "He had light brown, slightly reddish hair, he used some hair conditioner, and
he combed his hair in a diligent way ... his eyes, they were different: one was dark
brown; in the other, the pupil was so big that you could not see its color, [this was
caused by an injury]. The strangeness of his eyes gave Dostoyevsky some mysterious
appearance. His face was pale, and it looked unhealthy."[73]

On 15 February 1867 Dostoyevsky married Snitkina in Trinity Cathedral, Saint

Petersburg. The 7,000 rubles he had earned from Crime and Punishment did not cover
their debts, forcing Anna to sell her valuables. On 14 April 1867, they began a
delayed honeymoon in Germany with the money gained from the sale. They stayed in
Berlin and visited the Gemldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, where he sought
inspiration for his writing. They continued their trip through Germany, visiting
Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Heidelberg and Karlsruhe. They spent five weeks in Baden-
Baden, where Dostoyevsky had a quarrel with Turgenev and again lost much money
at the roulette table.[74] The couple travelled on to Geneva.

Memorial plaque to Dostoyevsky in Baden-Baden

In September 1867, Dostoyevsky began work on The Idiot, and after a prolonged
planning process that bore little resemblance to the published novel, he eventually
managed to write the first 100 pages in only 23 days; the serialisation began in The
Russian Messenger in January 1868.
Their first child, Sonya, had been conceived in Baden-Baden, and was born in Geneva
on 5 March 1868. The baby died of pneumonia three months later, and Anna recalled
how Dostoyevsky "wept and sobbed like a woman in despair".[75] The couple moved
from Geneva to Vevey and then to Milan, before continuing to Florence. The Idiot
was completed there in January 1869, the final part appearing in The Russian
Messenger in February 1869.[76][77] Anna gave birth to their second daughter, Lyubov,
on 26 September 1869 in Dresden. In April 1871, Dostoyevsky made a final visit to a
gambling hall in Wiesbaden. Anna claimed that he stopped gambling after the birth of
their second daughter, but this is a subject of debate.[d]

After hearing news that the socialist revolutionary group "People's Vengeance" had
murdered one of its own members, Ivan Ivanov, on 21 November 1869, Dostoyevsky
began writing Demons.[80] In 1871, Dostoyevsky and Anna travelled by train to
Berlin. During the trip, he burnt several manuscripts, including those of The Idiot,
because he was concerned about potential problems with customs. The family arrived
in Saint Petersburg on 8 July, marking the end of a honeymoon (originally planned for
three months) that had lasted over four years.[81][82]

Back in Russia (18711875)

Dostoyevsky (left) in the Haymarket, 21/22 March 1874

Back in Russia in July 1871, the family was again in financial trouble and had to sell
their remaining possessions. Their son Fyodor was born on 16 July, and they moved
to an apartment near the Institute of Technology soon after. They hoped to cancel
their large debts by selling their rental house in Peski, but difficulties with the tenant
resulted in a relatively low selling price, and disputes with their creditors continued.
Anna proposed that they raise money on her husband's copyrights and negotiate with
the creditors to pay off their debts in installments.[83][84]

Dostoyevsky revived his friendships with Maykov and Strakhov and made new
acquaintances, including church politician Terty Filipov and the brothers Vsevolod
and Vladimir Solovyov. Konstantin Pobedonostsev, future Imperial High
Commissioner of the Most Holy Synod, influenced Dostoyevsky's political
progression to conservatism. Around early 1872 the family spent several months in
Staraya Russa, a town known for its mineral spa. Dostoyevsky's work was delayed
when Anna's sister Maria Svatkovskaya died on 1 May 1872, either from typhus or
malaria,[85] and Anna developed an abscess on her throat.[83][86]
Dostoyevsky, 1876

The family returned to St Petersburg in September. Demons was finished on 26

November and released in January 1873 by the "Dostoyevsky Publishing Company",
which was founded by Dostoyevsky and his wife. Although they only accepted cash
payments and the bookshop was in their own apartment, the business was successful,
and they sold around 3,000 copies of Demons. Anna managed the finances.
Dostoyevsky proposed that they establish a new periodical, which would be called A
Writer's Diary and would include a collection of essays, but funds were lacking, and
the Diary was published in Vladimir Meshchersky's The Citizen, beginning on 1
January, in return for a salary of 3,000 rubles per year. In the summer of 1873, Anna
returned to Staraya Russa with the children, while Dostoyevsky stayed in St
Petersburg to continue with his Diary.[87][88]

In March 1874, Dostoyevsky left The Citizen because of the stressful work and
interference from the Russian bureaucracy. In his fifteen months with The Citizen, he
had been taken to court twice: on 11 June 1873 for citing the words of Prince
Meshchersky without permission, and again on 23 March 1874. Dostoyevsky offered
to sell a new novel he had not yet begun to write to The Russian Messenger, but the
magazine refused. Nikolay Nekrasov suggested that he publish A Writer's Diary in
Notes of the Fatherland; he would receive 250 rubles for each printer's sheet 100
more than the text's publication in The Russian Messenger would have earned.
Dostoyevsky accepted. As his health began to decline, he consulted several doctors in
St Petersburg and was advised to take a cure outside Russia. Around July, he reached
Ems and consulted a physician, who diagnosed him with acute catarrh. During his
stay he began The Adolescent. He returned to Saint Petersburg in late July.[89][90]

Anna proposed that they spend the winter in Staraya Russa to allow Dostoyevsky to
rest, although doctors had suggested a second visit to Ems because his health had
previously improved there. On 10 August 1875 his son Alexey was born in Staraya
Russa, and in mid-September the family returned to Saint Petersburg. Dostoyevsky
finished The Adolescent at the end of 1875, although passages of it had been serialised
in Notes of the Fatherland since January. The Adolescent chronicles the life of Arkady
Dolgoruky, the illegitimate child of the landowner Versilov and a peasant mother. It
deals primarily with the relationship between father and son, which became a frequent
theme in Dostoyevsky's subsequent works.[91][92]

Last years (18761881)

In early 1876, Dostoyevsky continued work on his Diary. The book includes
numerous essays and a few short stories about society, religion, politics and ethics.
The collection sold more than twice as many copies as his previous books.
Dostoyevsky received more letters from readers than ever before, and people of all
ages and occupations visited him. With assistance from Anna's brother, the family
bought a dacha in Staraya Russa. In the summer of 1876, Dostoyevsky began
experiencing shortness of breath again. He visited Ems for the third time and was told
that he might live for another 15 years if he moved to a healthier climate. When he
returned to Russia, Tsar Alexander II ordered Dostoyevsky to visit his palace to
present the Diary to him, and he asked him to educate his sons, Sergey and Paul. This
visit further increased Dosteyevsky's circle of acquaintances. He was a frequent guest
in several salons in Saint Petersburg and met many famous people, including Princess
Sophia Tolstaya, Yakov Polonsky, Sergei Witte, Alexey Suvorin, Anton Rubinstein
and Ilya Repin.[93][94]

Dostoyevsky's health declined further, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic
seizures. Rather than returning to Ems, he visited Maly Prikol, a manor near Kursk.
While returning to St Petersburg to finalise his Diary, he visited Darovoye, where he
had spent much of his childhood. In December he attended Nekrasov's funeral and
gave a speech. He was appointed an honorary member of the Russian Academy of
Sciences, from which he received an honorary certificate in February 1879. He
declined an invitation to an international congress on copyright in Paris after his son
Alyosha had a severe epileptic seizure and died on 16 May. The family later moved to
the apartment where Dostoyevsky had written his first works. Around this time, he
was elected to the board of directors of the Slavic Benevolent Society in Saint
Petersburg. That summer, he was elected to the honorary committee of the
Association Littraire et Artistique Internationale, whose members included Victor
Hugo, Ivan Turgenev, Paul Heyse, Alfred Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, Henry
Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Leo Tolstoy. Dostoyevsky made his fourth
and final visit to Ems in early August 1879. He was diagnosed with early-stage
pulmonary emphysema, which his doctor believed could be successfully managed, but
not cured.[95][96]

Dostoyevsky's funeral

On 3 February 1880 Dostoyevsky was elected vice-president of the Slavic Benevolent

Society, and he was invited to speak at the unveiling of the Pushkin memorial in
Moscow. On 8 June he delivered his speech, giving an impressive performance that
had a significant emotional impact on his audience. His speech was met with
thunderous applause, and even his long-time rival Turgenev embraced him.
Konstantin Staniukovich praised the speech in his essay "The Pushkin Anniversary
and Dostoyevsky's Speech" in The Business, writing that "the language of
Dostoyevsky's [Pushkin Speech] really looks like a sermon. He speaks with the tone
of a prophet. He makes a sermon like a pastor; it is very deep, sincere, and we
understand that he wants to impress the emotions of his listeners."[97] The speech was
criticised later by liberal political scientist Alexander Gradovsky, who thought that
Dostoyevsky idolised "the people",[98] and by conservative thinker Konstantin
Leontiev, who, in his essay "On Universal Love", compared the speech to French
utopian socialism.[99] The attacks led to a further deterioration in his health.[100][101]

Dostoyevsky on his bier, drawing by Ivan Kramskoi, 1881

Dostoyevsky's grave in Saint Petersburg

On 25 January 1881, while searching for members of the terrorist organisation

Narodnaya Volya ("The People's Will") who would soon assassinate Tsar Alexander
II, the Tsar's secret police executed a search warrant in the apartment of one of
Dostoyevsky's neighbours[citation needed]. On the following day, Dostoyevsky suffered a
pulmonary haemorrhage. Anna denied that the search had caused it, saying that the
haemorrhage had occurred after her husband had been looking for a dropped pen
holder.[e] After another haemorrhage, Anna called the doctors, who gave a poor
prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.[105][106]

Among Dostoyevsky's last words was his quotation of Matthew 3:1415: "But John
forbad him, saying, I have a need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to me? And
Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil
all righteousness", and he finished with "Hear nowpermit it. Do not restrain
me!"[107] When he died, his body was placed on a table, following Russian custom. He
was interred in the Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Convent,[108] near his
favourite poets, Nikolay Karamzin and Vasily Zhukovsky. It is unclear how many
attended his funeral. According to one reporter, more than 100,000 mourners were
present, while others describe attendance between 40,000 and 50,000. His tombstone
is inscribed with lines from the New Testament:[105][109]

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone: but if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit. John 12:24

Personal life
Extramarital affairs
Dostoyevsky had his first known affair with Avdotya Yakovlevna, whom he met in
the Panayev circle in the early 1840s. He described her as educated, interested in
literature, and a femme fatale.[110] He admitted later that he was uncertain about their
relationship.[111] According to Anna Dostoyevskaya's memoirs, Dostoyevsky once
asked his sister's sister-in-law, Yelena Ivanova, whether she would marry him, hoping
to replace her mortally ill husband after he died, but she rejected his proposal.[112]

Dostoyevsky and Apollonia (Polina) Suslova had a short but intimate affair, which
peaked in the winter of 186263. Suslova's dalliance with a Spaniard in late spring
and Dostoyevsky's gambling addiction and age ended their relationship. He later
described her in a letter to Nadezhda Suslova as a "great egoist. Her egoism and her
vanity are colossal. She demands everything of other people, all the perfections, and
does not pardon the slightest imperfection in the light of other qualities that one may
possess", and later stated "I still love her, but I do not want to love her any more. She
doesn't deserve this love ..."[58] In 1858 Dostoyevsky had a romance with comic
actress Aleksandra Ivanovna Schubert. Although she divorced Dostoyevsky's friend
Stepan Yanovsky, she would not live with him. Dostoyevsky did not love her either,
but they were probably good friends. She wrote that he "became very attracted to
me".[113][114]

Through a worker in Epoch, Dostoyevsky learned of the Russian-born Martha Brown

(ne Elizaveta Andreyevna Chlebnikova), who had had affairs with several
westerners. Her relationship with Dostoyevsky is known only through letters written
between November 1864 and January 1865.[115][116] In 1865, Dostoyevsky met Anna
Korvin-Krukovskaya. Their relationship is not verified; Anna Dostoyevskaya spoke
of a good affair, but Korvin-Krukovskaya's sister, the mathematician Sofia
Kovalevskaya, thought that Korvin-Krukovskaya had rejected him.[117]

Political beliefs

In his youth, Dostoyevsky enjoyed reading Nikolai Karamzin's History of the Russian
State, which praised conservatism and Russian independence, ideas that Dostoyevsky
would embrace later in life. Before his arrest for participating in the Petrashevsky
Circle in 1849, Dostoyevsky remarked, "As far as I am concerned, nothing was ever
more ridiculous than the idea of a republican government in Russia." In an 1881
edition of his Diaries, Dostoyevsky stated that the Tsar and the people should form a
unity: "For the people, the tsar is not an external power, not the power of some
conqueror ... but a power of all the people, an all-unifying power the people
themselves desired."[118]

While critical of serfdom, Dostoyevsky was skeptical about the creation of a

constitution, a concept he viewed as unrelated to Russia's history. He described it as a
mere "gentleman's rule" and believed that "a constitution would simply enslave the
people". He advocated social change instead, for example removal of the feudal
system and a weakening of the divisions between the peasantry and the affluent
classes. His ideal was a utopian, Christianized Russia where "if everyone were
actively Christian, not a single social question would come up ... If they were
Christians they would settle everything".[119] He thought democracy and oligarchy
were poor systems; of France he wrote, "the oligarchs are only concerned with the
interest of the wealthy; the democrats, only with the interest of the poor; but the
interests of society, the interest of all and the future of France as a wholeno one
there bothers about these things."[119] He maintained that political parties ultimately
led to social discord. In the 1860s, he discovered Pochvennichestvo, a movement
similar to Slavophilism in that it rejected Europe's culture and contemporary
philosophical movements, such as nihilism and materialism. Pochvennichestvo
differed from Slavophilism in aiming to establish, not an isolated Russia, but a more
open state modelled on the Russia of Peter the Great.[119]

In his incomplete article "Socialism and Christianity", Dostoyevsky claimed that

civilisation ("the second stage in human history") had become degraded, and that it
was moving towards liberalism and losing its faith in God. He asserted that the
traditional concept of Christianity should be recovered. He thought that contemporary
western Europe had "rejected the single formula for their salvation that came from
God and was proclaimed through revelation, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself', and replaced it with practical conclusions such as, 'Chacun pour soi et Dieu
pour tous' [Every man for himself and God for all], or "scientific" slogans like 'the
struggle for survival'".[118] He considered this crisis to be the consequence of the
collision between communal and individual interests, brought about by a decline in
religious and moral principles.

Dostoyevsky distinguished three "enormous world ideas" prevalent in his time:

Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and Russian Orthodoxy. He claimed that
Catholicism had continued the tradition of Imperial Rome and had thus become anti-
Christian and proto-socialist, inasmuch as the Church's interest in political and
mundane affairs led it to abandon the idea of Christ. For Dostoyevsky, socialism was
"the latest incarnation of the Catholic idea" and its "natural ally".[120] He found
Protestantism self-contradictory and claimed that it would ultimately lose power and
spirituality. He deemed Russian Orthodoxy to be the ideal form of Christianity.

During the Russo-Turkish War, Dostoyevsky asserted that war might be necessary if
salvation were to be granted. He wanted the Muslim Ottoman Empire eliminated and
the Christian Byzantine Empire restored, and he hoped for the liberation of Balkan
Slavs and their unification with the Russian Empire.[118]

Racial beliefs

He supported equal rights for the Russian Jewish population, which was an unpopular
position in Russia. He stated that he did not hate Jewish people and was not
antisemitic. He claimed that Jews might exert a negative influence, but he advised the
Tsar to allow them to occupy influential positions such as university
professorships.[citation needed]

Dostoyevsky held negative views of the Ottoman Turks, dedicating multiple pages to
them in his "Writer's Diary", professing the need to have no pity for Turks at war, no
regrets in killing Turks and depopulating Istanbul of Turkish population and shipping
it off to Asia.[121]

Religious beliefs
The New Testament that Dostoyevsky took with him to prison in Siberia

Dostoyevsky was an Eastern Orthodox Christian,[122] was raised in a religious family

and knew the Gospel from a very young age.[123] He was influenced by the Russian
translation of Johannes Hbner's One Hundred and Four Sacred Stories from the Old
and New Testaments Selected for Children (partly a German bible for children and
partly a catechism).[124][123][125] He attended Sunday liturgies from an early age and
took part in annual pilgrimages to the St. Sergius Trinity Monastery.[126] A deacon at
the hospital gave him religious instruction.[125] Among his most cherished childhood
memories were the prayers he used to recite in front of guests and a reading from the
Book of Job that impressed him while "still almost a child."[127]

According to an officer at the military academy, Dostoyevsky was profoundly

religious, followed Orthodox practice, and regularly read the Gospels and Heinrich
Zschokke's Die Stunden der Andacht ("Hours of Devotion"), which "preached a
sentimental version of Christianity entirely free from dogmatic content and with a
strong emphasis on giving Christian love a social application." This book may have
prompted his later interest in Christian socialism.[128] Through the literature of
Hoffmann, Balzac, Eugne Sue and Goethe, Dostoyevsky created his own belief
system, similar to Russian sectarianism and the Old Belief.[128] After his arrest,
aborted execution and subsequent imprisonment, he focused intensely on the figure of
Christ and on the New Testament, the only book allowed in prison.[129] In a January
1854 letter to the woman who had sent him the New Testament, Dostoyevsky wrote
that he was a "child of unbelief and doubt up to this moment, and I am certain that I
shall remain so to the grave." He also wrote that "even if someone were to prove to
me that the truth lay outside Christ, I should choose to remain with Christ rather than
with the truth."[130]

In Semipalatinsk, Dostoyevsky revived his faith by looking frequently at the stars.

Wrangel said that he was "rather pious, but did not often go to church, and disliked
priests, especially the Siberian ones. But he spoke about Christ ecstatically." Both
planned to translate Hegel's works and Carus' Psyche. Dostoyevsky explored Islam,
asking his brother to send him a copy of the Quran. Two pilgrimages and two works
by Dmitri Rostovsky, an archbishop who influenced Ukrainian and Russian literature
by composing groundbreaking religious plays, strengthened his beliefs.[131] Through
his visits to western Europe and discussions with Herzen, Grigoriev, and Strakhov,
Dostoyevsky discovered the Pochvennichestvo movement and the theory that the
Catholic Church had adopted the principles of rationalism, legalism, materialism, and
individualism from ancient Rome and had passed on its philosophy to Protestantism
and consequently to atheistic socialism.[132]
Early life and acting debut
Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley[3] on 5 November 1913 in British India on the
campus of St. Paul's School, Darjeeling. She was the only child of Ernest Richard
Hartley, an English broker, and his wife, Gertrude Mary Frances (ne Yackjee; she
also used her mother's maiden name of Robinson).[4] Her father was born in Scotland
in 1882, while her mother, a devout Roman Catholic, was born in Darjeeling in 1888
and was of Irish descent. Gertrude's parents, who lived in India, were Michael John
Yackjee (born 1840), a man of independent means, and Mary Teresa Robinson (born
1856), who was born to an Irish family killed during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and
grew up in an orphanage, where she met Yackjee; they married in 1872 and had five
children, of whom Gertrude was the youngest.[5] Ernest and Gertrude Hartley were
married in 1912 in Kensington, London.[6]

In 1917, Ernest Hartley was transferred to Bangalore as an officer in the Indian

Cavalry, while Gertrude and Vivian stayed in Ootacamund.[7] At the age of three,
young Vivian made her first stage appearance for her mother's amateur theatre group,
reciting "Little Bo Peep".[8] Gertrude Hartley tried to instill an appreciation of
literature in her daughter and introduced her to the works of Hans Christian Andersen,
Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling, as well as stories of Greek mythology and Indian
folklore.[9] At the age of six, Vivian was sent by her mother to the Convent of the
Sacred Heart (now Woldingham School) then situated in Roehampton, southwest
London, from Loreto Convent, Darjeeling.[10] One of her friends there was future
actress Maureen O'Sullivan, two years her senior, to whom Vivian expressed her
desire to become "a great actress".[11][12] She was removed from the school by her
father, and travelling with her parents for four years, she attended schools in Europe,
notably in Dinard, Biarritz, San Remo and Paris, becoming fluent in both French and
Italian.[13] The family returned to Britain in 1931. She attended A Connecticut Yankee,
one of O'Sullivan's films playing in London's West End, and told her parents of her
ambitions to become an actress. Shortly after, her father enrolled Vivian at the Royal
Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.[14]

Vivian met Herbert Leigh Holman, known as Leigh Holman, a barrister 13 years her
senior, in 1931.[15] Despite his disapproval of "theatrical people", they married on 20
December 1932 and she terminated her studies at RADA, her attendance and interest
in acting having already waned after meeting Holman.[16] On 12 October 1933 in
London, she gave birth to a daughter, Suzanne, later Mrs. Robin Farrington.[17][Note 1]

Early career
Leigh's friends suggested she take a small role as a schoolgirl in the film Things Are
Looking Up, which was her film debut, albeit uncredited as an extra.[20] She engaged
an agent, John Gliddon, who believed that "Vivian Holman" was not a suitable name
for an actress. After rejecting his many suggestions, she took "Vivian Leigh" as her
professional name.[21][Note 2] Gliddon recommended her to Alexander Korda as a
possible film actress, but Korda rejected her as lacking potential.[23] She was cast in
the play The Mask of Virtue, directed by Sidney Carroll in 1935, and received
excellent reviews, followed by interviews and newspaper articles. One such article
was from the Daily Express, in which the interviewer noted "a lightning change came
over her face", which was the first public mention of the rapid changes in mood which
had become characteristic of her.[24] John Betjeman, the future poet laureate,
described her as "the essence of English girlhood".[25] Korda attended her opening
night performance, admitted his error, and signed her to a film contract.[21] She
continued with the play but, when Korda moved it to a larger theatre, Leigh was
found to be unable to project her voice adequately or to hold the attention of so large
an audience, and the play closed soon after.[26] In the playbill, Carroll had revised the
spelling of her first name to "Vivien".[27]

In 1960 Leigh recalled her ambivalence towards her first experience of critical
acclaim and sudden fame, commenting, "that some critics saw fit to be as foolish as to
say that I was a great actress. And I thought, that was a foolish, wicked thing to say,
because it put such an onus and such a responsibility onto me, which I simply wasn't
able to carry. And it took me years to learn enough to live up to what they said for
those first notices.[28] I find it so stupid. I remember the critic very well and have
never forgiven him."[29]

Meeting Laurence Olivier

Laurence Olivier saw Leigh in The Mask of Virtue, and a friendship developed after
he congratulated her on her performance. Olivier and Leigh began an affair while
acting as lovers in Fire Over England (1937), but Olivier was still married to actress
Jill Esmond.[30] During this period, Leigh read the Margaret Mitchell novel Gone with
the Wind and instructed her American agent to recommend her to David O. Selznick,
who was planning a film version.[31] She remarked to a journalist, "I've cast myself as
Scarlett O'Hara", and The Observer film critic C. A. Lejeune recalled a conversation
of the same period in which Leigh "stunned us all" with the assertion that Olivier
"won't play Rhett Butler, but I shall play Scarlett O'Hara. Wait and see."[32]

Despite her relative inexperience, Leigh was chosen to play Ophelia to Olivier's
Hamlet in an Old Vic Theatre production staged at Elsinore, Denmark.[33] Olivier later
recalled an incident when her mood rapidly changed as she was preparing to go
onstage. Without apparent provocation, she began screaming at him before suddenly
becoming silent and staring into space. She was able to perform without mishap, and
by the following day she had returned to normal with no recollection of the event. It
was the first time Olivier witnessed such behaviour from her.[34] They began living
together, as their respective spouses had each refused to grant either of them a
divorce.[35] Under the moral standards then enforced by the film industry, their
relationship had to be kept from public view.

Leigh appeared with Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore and Maureen O'Sullivan in A
Yank at Oxford (1938), which was the first of her films to receive attention in the
United States. During production, she developed a reputation for being difficult and
unreasonable, partly because she disliked her secondary role but mainly because her
petulant antics seemed to be paying dividends.[36] After dealing with the threat of a
lawsuit brought over a frivolous incident, Korda, however, instructed her agent to
warn her that her option would not be renewed if her behaviour did not improve.[37]
Her next role was in Sidewalks of London, also known as St. Martin's Lane (1938),
with Charles Laughton.[38]
Olivier had been attempting to broaden his film career. He was not well known in the
United States despite his success in Britain, and earlier attempts to introduce him to
American audiences had failed. Offered the role of Heathcliff in Samuel Goldwyn's
production of Wuthering Heights (1939), he travelled to Hollywood, leaving Leigh in
London. Goldwyn and the film's director, William Wyler, offered Leigh the
secondary role of Isabella, but she refused, preferring the role of Cathy, which went to
Merle Oberon.[39]

Gone with the Wind

Clark Gable and Leigh strike an amorous pose in Gone with the Wind (1939)

Hollywood was in the midst of a widely publicized search to find an actress to portray
Scarlett O'Hara in David O. Selznick's production of Gone with the Wind (1939).[31]
At the time, Myron SelznickDavid's brother and Leigh's American theatrical
agentwas the London representative of the Myron Selznick Agency. In February
1938, Leigh made a request to Myron Selznick that she be considered to play the part
of Scarlett O'Hara.[40]

David O. Selznick watched her performances that month in Fire Over England and A
Yank at Oxford and thought that she was excellent but in no way a possible Scarlett
because she was "too British". Leigh travelled to Los Angeles, however, to be with
Olivier and to try to convince David Selznick that she was the person for the part.
Myron Selznick also represented Olivier and when he met Leigh, he felt that she
possessed the qualities that his brother was searching for.[41] According to legend,
Myron Selznick took Leigh and Olivier to the set where the burning of the Atlanta
Depot scene was being filmed and stage-managed an encounter, where he introduced
Leigh, derisively addressing his younger brother, "Hey, genius, meet your Scarlett
O'Hara."[42] The following day, Leigh read a scene for Selznick, who organized a
screen test with director George Cukor and wrote to his wife, "She's the Scarlett dark
horse and looks damn good. Not for anyone's ear but your own: it's narrowed down to
Paulette Goddard, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett and Vivien Leigh".[43] The director,
George Cukor, concurred and praised Leigh's "incredible wildness". She secured the
role of Scarlett soon after.[44]
Filming proved difficult for Leigh. Cukor was dismissed and replaced by Victor
Fleming, with whom Leigh frequently quarrelled. She and Olivia de Havilland
secretly met with Cukor at night and at weekends for his advice about how they
should play their parts.[45][46] Leigh befriended Clark Gable, his wife Carole Lombard
and Olivia de Havilland; but she clashed with Leslie Howard, with whom she was
required to play several emotional scenes.[46][47] Leigh was sometimes required to
work seven days a week, often late into the night, which added to her distress; and she
missed Olivier, who was working in New York City.[48] On a long-distance telephone
call to Olivier, she declared: "Puss, my puss, how I hate film acting! Hate, hate, and
never want to do another film again!"[48]

Quoted in a 2006 biography of Olivier, Olivia de Havilland defended Leigh against

claims of her manic behaviour during the filming of Gone with the Wind: "Vivien was
impeccably professional, impeccably disciplined on Gone with the Wind. She had two
great concerns: doing her best work in an extremely difficult role and being separated
from Larry [Olivier], who was in New York."[49]

Gone with the Wind brought Leigh immediate attention and fame; but she was quoted
as saying, "I'm not a film star I'm an actress. Being a film star just a film star is
such a false life, lived for fake values and for publicity. Actresses go on for a long
time and there are always marvellous parts to play."[48] The film won 10 Academy
Awards including a Best Actress award for Leigh,[50] who also won a New York Film
Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.[51]

Marriage and early joint projects

In February 1940, Jill Esmond agreed to divorce Laurence Olivier, and Leigh Holman
agreed to divorce Vivien, although they maintained a strong friendship for the rest of
Leigh's life. Esmond was granted custody of Tarquin, her son with Olivier. Holman
was granted custody of Suzanne, his daughter with Leigh. On 31 August 1940, Olivier
and Leigh were married at the San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, California, in a
ceremony attended only by their hosts, Ronald and Benita Colman and witnesses,
Katharine Hepburn and Garson Kanin.[52] Leigh had made a screen test and hoped to
co-star with Olivier in Rebecca, which was to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock with
Olivier in the leading role. After viewing Leigh's screen test, David Selznick noted
that "she doesn't seem right as to sincerity or age or innocence", a view shared by
Hitchcock and Leigh's mentor, George Cukor.[53]

Selznick observed that she had shown no enthusiasm for the part until Olivier had
been confirmed as the lead actor, so he cast Joan Fontaine. He refused to allow her to
join Olivier in Pride and Prejudice (1940), and Greer Garson played the role Leigh
had wanted for herself.[54] Waterloo Bridge (1940) was to have starred Olivier and
Leigh; however, Selznick replaced Olivier with Robert Taylor, then at the peak of his
success as one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's most popular male stars.[55] Her top billing
reflected her status in Hollywood, and the film was popular with audiences and
critics.[56]
With Laurence Olivier in That Hamilton Woman (1941)

The Oliviers mounted a stage production of Romeo and Juliet for Broadway. The
New York press publicised the adulterous nature of the beginning of Olivier and
Leigh's relationship and questioned their ethics in not returning to the UK to help with
the war effort.[57][Note 3]

Critics were hostile in their assessment of Romeo and Juliet. Brooks Atkinson for The
New York Times wrote: "Although Miss Leigh and Mr. Olivier are handsome young
people, they hardly act their parts at all."[60] While most of the blame was attributed to
Olivier's acting and direction, Leigh was also criticised, with Bernard Grebanier
commenting on the "thin, shopgirl quality of Miss Leigh's voice".[61] The couple had
invested almost all of their combined savings of $40,000 in the project, and the failure
was a financial disaster for them.[62]

The Oliviers filmed That Hamilton Woman (1941) with Olivier as Horatio Nelson and
Leigh as Emma Hamilton. With the United States not yet having entered the war, it
was one of several Hollywood films made with the aim of arousing a pro-British
sentiment among American audiences.[63] The film was popular in the United States
and an outstanding success in the Soviet Union.[64] Winston Churchill arranged a
screening for a party that included Franklin D. Roosevelt and, on its conclusion,
addressed the group, saying, "Gentlemen, I thought this film would interest you,
showing great events similar to those in which you have just been taking part." The
Oliviers remained favourites of Churchill, attending dinners and occasions at his
request for the rest of his life; and, of Leigh, he was quoted as saying, "By Jove, she's
a clinker."[65]

The Oliviers returned to Britain in March 1943,[66] and Leigh toured through North
Africa that same year as part of a revue for the armed forces stationed in the region.
She reportedly turned down a studio contract worth $5,000 a week to volunteer as part
of the war effort.[66] Leigh performed for troops before falling ill with a persistent
cough and fevers.[67] In 1944 she was diagnosed as having tuberculosis in her left lung
and spent several weeks in hospital before appearing to have recovered. Leigh was
filming Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) when she discovered she was pregnant, then
had a miscarriage.[68] Leigh temporarily fell into a deep depression that hit its low
point, with her falling to the floor, sobbing in an hysterical fit.[69] This was the first of
many major bipolar disorder breakdowns. Olivier later came to recognise the
symptoms of an impending episode several days of hyperactivity followed by a
period of depression and an explosive breakdown, after which Leigh would have no
memory of the event, but would be acutely embarrassed and remorseful.[70]

Leigh and Olivier in Australia, June 1948

With her doctor's approval, Leigh was well enough to resume acting in 1946, starring
in a successful London production of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth; but
her films of this period, Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) and Anna Karenina (1948),
were not great commercial successes. All British films in this period were adversely
affected by a Hollywood boycott of British films.[71]

In 1947 Olivier was knighted and Leigh accompanied him to Buckingham Palace for
the investiture. She became Lady Olivier.[72] After their divorce, according to the style
granted to the divorced wife of a knight, she became known socially as Vivien, Lady
Olivier.[73]

By 1948 Olivier was on the board of directors for the Old Vic Theatre, and he and
Leigh embarked on a six-month tour of Australia and New Zealand to raise funds for
the theatre. Olivier played the lead in Richard III and also performed with Leigh in
The School for Scandal and The Skin of Our Teeth. The tour was an outstanding
success and, although Leigh was plagued with insomnia and allowed her understudy
to replace her for a week while she was ill, she generally withstood the demands
placed upon her, with Olivier noting her ability to "charm the press". Members of the
company later recalled several quarrels between the couple as Olivier was
increasingly resentful of the demands placed on him during the tour.[74] The most
dramatic altercation occurred in Christchurch, New Zealand, when her shoes were not
found and Leigh refused to go onstage without them. An exhausted and exasperated
Olivier screamed an obscenity at her and slapped her face, and a devastated Leigh
slapped him in return, dismayed that he would hit her publicly. Subsequently, she
made her way to the stage in borrowed pumps, and in seconds, had "dried her tears
and smiled brightly onstage".[75] By the end of the tour, both were exhausted and ill.
Olivier told a journalist, "You may not know it, but you are talking to a couple of
walking corpses." Later, he would observe that he "lost Vivien" in Australia.[76]

The success of the tour encouraged the Oliviers to make their first West End
appearance together, performing the same works with one addition, Antigone,
included at Leigh's insistence because she wished to play a role in a tragedy.[77]

Play and film roles in A Streetcar Named Desire

As Blanche DuBois, from the trailer for the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire
(1951)

Leigh next sought the role of Blanche DuBois in the West End stage production of
Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and was cast after Williams and the
play's producer Irene Mayer Selznick saw her in The School for Scandal and
Antigone; Olivier was contracted to direct.[78] The play contained a rape scene and
references to promiscuity and homosexuality, and was destined to be controversial;
the media discussion about its suitability added to Leigh's anxiety. Nevertheless, she
believed strongly in the importance of the work.[79]

When the West End production of Streetcar opened in October 1949, J. B. Priestley
denounced the play and Leigh's performance; and the critic Kenneth Tynan, who was
to make a habit of dismissing her stage performances,[80] commented that Leigh was
badly miscast because British actors were "too well-bred to emote effectively on
stage". Olivier and Leigh were chagrined that part of the commercial success of the
play lay in audience members attending to see what they believed would be a
salacious story, rather than the Greek tragedy that they envisioned. The play also had
strong supporters,[81] among them Nol Coward, who described Leigh as
"magnificent".[82]

After 326 performances, Leigh finished her run, and she was soon assigned to reprise
her role as Blanche DuBois in the film version of the play.[Note 4] Her irreverent and
often bawdy sense of humour allowed her to establish a rapport with Brando, but she
had an initial difficulty in working with director Elia Kazan, who was displeased with
the direction that Olivier had taken in shaping the character of Blanche.[84] Kazan had
favoured Jessica Tandy and later, Olivia de Havilland over Leigh, but knew she had
been a success on the London stage as Blanche.[83] He later commented that he did not
hold her in high regard as an actress, believing that "she had a small talent." As work
progressed, however, he became "full of admiration" for "the greatest determination
to excel of any actress I've known. She'd have crawled over broken glass if she
thought it would help her performance." Leigh found the role gruelling and
commented to the Los Angeles Times, "I had nine months in the theatre of Blanche
DuBois. Now she's in command of me."[85] Olivier accompanied her to Hollywood
where he was to co-star with Jennifer Jones in William Wyler's Carrie (1952).

Leigh's performance in A Streetcar Named Desire won glowing reviews, as well as a

second Academy Award for Best Actress,[86] a British Academy of Film and
Television Arts (BAFTA) Award for Best British Actress, and a New York Film
Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.[87] Tennessee Williams commented that Leigh
brought to the role "everything that I intended, and much that I had never dreamed
of". Leigh herself had mixed feelings about her association with the character; in later
years, she said that playing Blanche DuBois "tipped me over into madness".[88]

Struggle with mental illness

In 1951, Leigh and Laurence Olivier performed two plays about Cleopatra, William
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and
Cleopatra, alternating the play each night and winning good reviews.[89] They took
the productions to New York, where they performed a season at the Ziegfeld Theatre
into 1952.[90] The reviews there were also mostly positive, but film critic Kenneth
Tynan angered them when he suggested that Leigh's was a mediocre talent that forced
Olivier to compromise his own.[91] Tynan's diatribe almost precipitated another
collapse; Leigh, terrified of failure and intent on achieving greatness, dwelt on his
comments and ignored the positive reviews of other critics.[92]

In January 1953, Leigh travelled to Ceylon to film Elephant Walk with Peter Finch.
Shortly after filming commenced, she had a nervous breakdown and Paramount
Pictures replaced her with Elizabeth Taylor.[93] Olivier returned her to their home in
Britain, where, between periods of incoherence, Leigh told him she was in love with
Finch and had been having an affair with him.[94] Over a period of several months, she
gradually recovered. As a result of this episode, many of the Oliviers' friends learned
of her problems. David Niven said she had been "quite, quite mad". Nol Coward
expressed surprise in his diary that "things had been bad and getting worse since 1948
or thereabouts".[95] Leigh's romantic relationship with Finch began in 1948, and
waxed and waned for several years, ultimately flickering out as her mental condition
deteriorated.[96]

Also in 1953, Leigh recovered sufficiently to play The Sleeping Prince with Olivier,
and in 1955 they performed a season at Stratford-upon-Avon in Shakespeare's Twelfth
Night, Macbeth, and Titus Andronicus.[97] They played to capacity houses and
attracted generally good reviews, Leigh's health seemingly stable. John Gielgud
directed Twelfth Night and wrote, "... perhaps I will still make a good thing of that
divine play, especially if he will let me pull her little ladyship (who is brainier than he
but not a born actress) out of her timidity and safeness. He dares too confidently ... but
she hardly dares at all and is terrified of overreaching her technique and doing
anything that she has not killed the spontaneity of by overpractice."[98] In 1955 Leigh
starred in Anatole Litvak's film The Deep Blue Sea; co-star Kenneth More felt he had
poor chemistry with Leigh during the filming.[99]
Photograph by Roloff Beny, 1958

In 1956, Leigh took the lead role in the Nol Coward play South Sea Bubble, but
withdrew from the production when she became pregnant. Several weeks later, she
miscarried and entered a period of depression that lasted for months.[100] She joined
Olivier for a European tour of Titus Andronicus, but the tour was marred by Leigh's
frequent outbursts against Olivier and other members of the company. After their
return to London, her former husband, Leigh Holman, who could still exert a strong
influence on her, stayed with the Oliviers and helped calm her.[101]

In 1958, considering her marriage to be over, Leigh began a relationship with actor
Jack Merivale, who knew of Leigh's medical condition and assured Olivier that he
would care for her. In 1959, when she achieved a success with the Nol Coward
comedy Look After Lulu!, a critic working for The Times described her as "beautiful,
delectably cool and matter of fact, she is mistress of every situation".[102]

In 1960 she and Olivier divorced and Olivier soon married actress Joan Plowright.[103]
In his autobiography, Olivier discussed the years of strain they had experienced
because of Leigh's illness: "Throughout her possession by that uncannily evil monster,
manic depression, with its deadly ever-tightening spirals, she retained her own
individual canniness an ability to disguise her true mental condition from almost all
except me, for whom she could hardly be expected to take the trouble."[2]

Final years and death

Merivale proved to be a stabilising influence for Leigh, but despite her apparent
contentment, she was quoted by Radie Harris as confiding that she "would rather have
lived a short life with Larry [Olivier] than face a long one without him".[104] Her first
husband Leigh Holman also spent considerable time with her. Merivale joined her for
a tour of Australia, New Zealand and Latin America that lasted from July 1961 until
May 1962, and Leigh enjoyed positive reviews without sharing the spotlight with
Olivier.[105] Though she was still beset by bouts of depression, she continued to work
in the theatre and, in 1963, won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her
role in Tovarich. She also appeared in the films The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
(1961) and Ship of Fools (1965).[106]
Leigh's last screen appearance in Ship of Fools was both a triumph and emblematic of
her illnesses that were taking root. Producer and director Stanley Kramer, who ended
up with the film, planned to star Leigh but was initially unaware of her fragile mental
and physical state.[Note 5] Later recounting her work, Kramer remembered her courage
in taking on the difficult role, "She was ill, and the courage to go ahead, the courage
to make the film was almost unbelievable."[108] Leigh's performance was tinged by
paranoia and resulted in outbursts that marred her relationship with other actors,
although both Simone Signoret and Lee Marvin were sympathetic and
understanding.[109] In one unusual instance during the attempted rape scene, Leigh
became distraught and hit Marvin so hard with a spiked shoe, that it marked his
face.[110] Leigh won the L'toile de Cristal for her performance in a leading role in
Ship of Fools.[111][Note 6]

In May 1967 Leigh was rehearsing to appear with Michael Redgrave in Edward
Albee's A Delicate Balance when her tuberculosis recurred.[112] Following several
weeks of rest, she seemed to recover. On the night of 7 July 1967, Merivale left her as
usual at their Eaton Square flat to perform in a play, and he returned home just before
midnight to find her asleep. About 30 minutes later (by now 8 July), he entered the
bedroom and discovered her body on the floor. She had been attempting to walk to the
bathroom and, as her lungs filled with liquid, collapsed and suffocated.[113] Merivale
first contacted her family and later was able to reach Olivier, who was receiving
treatment for prostate cancer in a nearby hospital.[114] In his autobiography, Olivier
described his "grievous anguish" as he immediately travelled to Leigh's residence, to
find that Merivale had moved her body onto the bed. Olivier paid his respects, and
"stood and prayed for forgiveness for all the evils that had sprung up between us",[115]
before helping Merivale make funeral arrangements; Olivier stayed until her body
was removed from the flat.[114][Note 7]

Her death was publicly announced on 8 July, and the lights of every theatre in central
London were extinguished for an hour.[117] A Catholic service for Leigh was held at
St. Mary's Church, Cadogan Street, London. Her funeral was attended by the
luminaries of British stage and screen.[118] According to the provisions of her will,
Leigh was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium and her ashes were scattered
on the lake at her summer home, Tickerage Mill, near Blackboys, East Sussex,
England.[119] A memorial service was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields, with a final
tribute read by John Gielgud.[120] In 1968 Leigh became the first actress honoured in
the United States, by "The Friends of the Libraries at the University of Southern
California".[121] The ceremony was conducted as a memorial service, with selections
from her films shown and tributes provided by such associates as George Cukor, who
screened the tests that Leigh had made for Gone with the Wind, the first time the
screen tests had been seen in 30 years.[122]

Letters
See also: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh in 1873, when he worked at the Goupil & Cie's gallery in The Hague;[7]
Theo (pictured right, in 1878) was a life-long supporter and friend to his brother.

The most comprehensive primary source on Van Gogh is the correspondence between
him and his younger brother, Theo. Their lifelong friendship, and most of what is
known of Vincent's thoughts and theories of art, are recorded in the hundreds of
letters they exchanged from 1872 until 1890.[8] Theo van Gogh was an art dealer and
provided his brother with financial and emotional support, and access to influential
people on the contemporary art scene.[9]

Theo kept all of Vincent's letters to him;[10] Vincent kept few of the letters he
received. After both had died, Theo's widow Johanna arranged for the publication of
some of their letters. A few appeared in 1906 and 1913; the majority were published
in 1914.[11][12] Vincent's letters are eloquent and expressive and have been described
as having a "diary-like intimacy",[9] and read in parts like autobiography.[9] The
translator Arnold Pomerans wrote that their publication adds a "fresh dimension to the
understanding of Van Gogh's artistic achievement, an understanding granted us by
virtually no other painter".[13]

There are more than 600 letters from Vincent to Theo and around 40 from Theo to
Vincent. There are 22 to his sister Wil, 58 to the painter Anthon van Rappard, 22 to
mile Bernard as well as individual letters to Paul Signac, Paul Gauguin and the critic
Albert Aurier. Some are illustrated with sketches.[9] Many are undated, but art
historians have been able to place most in chronological order. Problems in
transcription and dating remain, mainly with those posted from Arles. While there
Vincent wrote around 200 letters in Dutch, French and English.[14] There is a gap in
the record when he lived in Paris as the brothers lived together and had no need to
correspond.[15]

Life
Main article: Vincent van Gogh chronology

Early years

See also: Van Gogh's family in his art

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 in Groot-Zundert, in the
predominantly Catholic province of North Brabant in the southern Netherlands.[16] He
was the oldest surviving child of Theodorus van Gogh, a minister of the Dutch
Reformed Church, and Anna Cornelia Carbentus. Van Gogh was given the name of
his grandfather, and of a brother stillborn exactly a year before his birth.[note 2] Vincent
was a common name in the Van Gogh family: his grandfather, Vincent (17891874),
who received a degree in theology at the University of Leiden in 1811, had six sons,
three of whom became art dealers. This Vincent may have been named after his own
great-uncle, a sculptor (17291802).[18]

Van Gogh's mother came from a prosperous family in The Hague,[19] and his father
was the youngest son of a minister.[20] The two met when Anna's younger sister,
Cornelia, married Theodorus's older brother Vincent (Cent). Van Gogh's parents
married in May 1851 and moved to Zundert.[21] His brother Theo was born on 1 May
1857. There was another brother, Cor, and three sisters: Elisabeth, Anna, and
Willemina (known as "Wil"). In later life Van Gogh remained in touch only with
Willemina and Theo.[22] Van Gogh's mother was a rigid and religious woman who
emphasised the importance of family to the point of claustrophobia for those around
her.[23] Theodorus's salary was modest, but the Church supplied the family with a
house, a maid, two cooks, a gardener, a carriage and horse, and Anna instilled in the
children a duty to uphold the family's high social position.[24]

Vincent c.1866, about 13 years old

Van Gogh was a serious and thoughtful child.[25] He was taught at home by his mother
and a governess, and in 1860 was sent to the village school. In 1864 he was placed in
a boarding school at Zevenbergen,[26] where he felt abandoned, and campaigned to
come home. Instead, in 1866 his parents sent him to the middle school in Tilburg,
where he was deeply unhappy.[27] His interest in art began at a young age. He was
encouraged to draw as a child by his mother,[28] and his early drawings are
expressive,[26] but do not approach the intensity of his later work.[29] Constantijn C.
Huysmans, who had been a successful artist in Paris, taught the students at Tilburg.
His philosophy was to reject technique in favour of capturing the impressions of
things, particularly nature or common objects. Van Gogh's profound unhappiness
seems to have overshadowed the lessons, which had little effect;[30] in March 1868 he
abruptly returned home. He later wrote that his youth was "austere and cold, and
sterile".[31]

In July 1869 Van Gogh's uncle Cent obtained a position for him at the art dealers
Goupil & Cie in The Hague.[32] After completing his training in 1873, he was
transferred to Goupil's London branch at Southampton Street, and took lodgings at 87
Hackford Road, Stockwell.[33] This was a happy time for Van Gogh; he was
successful at work, and at 20 was earning more than his father. Theo's wife later
remarked that this was the best year of Vincent's life. He became infatuated with his
landlady's daughter, Eugnie Loyer, but was rejected after confessing his feelings; she
was secretly engaged to a former lodger. He grew more isolated, and religiously
fervent. His father and uncle arranged a transfer to Paris in 1875, where he became
resentful of issues such as the degree to which the firm commodified art, and was
dismissed a year later.[34]

Van Gogh's home in Cuesmes; while there he decided to become an artist

In April 1876 he returned to England to take unpaid work as a supply teacher in a

small boarding school in Ramsgate. When the proprietor moved to Isleworth in
Middlesex, Van Gogh went with him.[35][36] The arrangement did not work out and he
left to become a Methodist minister's assistant.[37] His parents had meanwhile moved
to Etten;[38] in 1876 he returned home at Christmas for six months and took work at a
bookshop in Dordrecht. He was unhappy in the position and spent his time doodling
or translating passages from the Bible into English, French and German.[39] He
immersed himself in religion, and became increasingly pious and monastic.[40]
According to his flatmate of the time, Paulus van Grlitz, Van Gogh ate frugally,
avoiding meat.[41]
To support his religious conviction and his desire to become a pastor, in 1877 the
family sent him to live with his uncle Johannes Stricker, a respected theologian, in
Amsterdam.[42] Van Gogh prepared for the University of Amsterdam theology
entrance examination;[43] he failed the exam, and left his uncle's house in July 1878.
He undertook, but also failed, a three-month course at a Protestant missionary school
in Laken, near Brussels.[44]

In January 1879 he took up a post as a missionary at Petit-Wasmes.[45] in the coal-

mining district of Borinage in Belgium. To show support for his impoverished
congregation, he gave up his comfortable lodgings at a bakery to a homeless person,
and moved to a small hut where he slept on straw.[46] His squalid living conditions did
not endear him to church authorities, who dismissed him for "undermining the dignity
of the priesthood". He then walked the 75 kilometres (47 mi) to Brussels,[47] returned
briefly to Cuesmes in the Borinage, but gave in to pressure from his parents to return
home to Etten. He stayed there until around March 1880,[note 3] which caused concern
and frustration for his parents. His father was especially frustrated and advised that his
son should be committed to the lunatic asylum at Geel.[49][50][note 4]

Van Gogh returned to Cuesmes in August 1880, where he lodged with a miner until
October.[52] He became interested in the people and scenes around him, and recorded
them in drawings after Theo's suggestion that he take up art in earnest. He travelled to
Brussels later in the year, to follow Theo's recommendation that he study with the
Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him in spite of his dislike of formal
schools of art to attend the Acadmie Royale des Beaux-Arts. He registered at the
Acadmie in November 1880, where he studied anatomy and the standard rules of
modelling and perspective.[53]

Etten, Drenthe and The Hague

See also: Early works of Vincent van Gogh

Kee Vos-Stricker with her son Jan c.187980

Van Gogh returned to Etten in April 1881 for an extended stay with his parents.[54] He
continued to draw, often using his neighbours as subjects. In August 1881, his
recently widowed cousin, Cornelia "Kee" Vos-Stricker, daughter of his mother's older
sister Willemina and Johannes Stricker, arrived for a visit. He was thrilled and took
long walks with her. Kee was seven years older than he was, and had an eight-year-
old son. Van Gogh surprised everyone by declaring his love to her and proposing
marriage.[55] She refused with the words "No, nay, never" ("nooit, neen, nimmer").[56]
After Kee returned to Amsterdam, Van Gogh went to The Hague to try to sell
paintings and to meet with his second cousin, Anton Mauve. Mauve was the
successful artist Van Gogh longed to be.[57] Mauve invited him to return in a few
months, and suggested he spend the intervening time working in charcoal and pastels;
Van Gogh went back to Etten and followed this advice.[57]

Late in November 1881, Van Gogh wrote a letter to Johannes Stricker, one which he
described to Theo as an attack.[58] Within days he left for Amsterdam.[59] Kee would
not meet him, and her parents wrote that his "persistence is disgusting".[60] In despair,
he held his left hand in the flame of a lamp, with the words: "Let me see her for as
long as I can keep my hand in the flame."[60][61] He did not recall the event well, but
later assumed that his uncle had blown out the flame. Kee's father made it clear that
her refusal should be heeded and that the two would not marry, largely because of
Van Gogh's inability to support himself.[62]

Mauve took Van Gogh on as a student and introduced him to watercolour, which he
worked on for the next month before returning home for Christmas.[63] He quarrelled
with his father, refusing to attend church, and left for The Hague.[note 5][66] Within a
month Van Gogh and Mauve fell out, possibly over the viability of drawing from
plaster casts.[67] Van Gogh could afford to hire only people from the street as models,
a practice of which Mauve seems to have disapproved.[68] In June Van Gogh suffered
a bout of gonorrhoea and spent three weeks in hospital.[69] Soon after, he first painted
in oils,[70] bought with money borrowed from Theo. He liked the medium, and spread
the paint liberally, scraping from the canvas and working back with the brush. He
wrote that he was surprised at how good the results were.[71]

Rooftops, View from the Atelier The Hague, 1882, private collection

By March 1882, Mauve appears to have gone cold towards Van Gogh, and stopped
replying to his letters.[72] He had learned of Van Gogh's new domestic arrangement
with an alcoholic prostitute, Clasina Maria "Sien" Hoornik (18501904), and her
young daughter.[73] Van Gogh had met Sien towards the end of January 1882, when
she had a five-year-old daughter and was pregnant. She had previously borne two
children who died, but Van Gogh was unaware of this;[74] on 2 July, she gave birth to
a baby boy, Willem.[75] When Van Gogh's father discovered the details of their
relationship, he put pressure on his son to abandon Sien and her two children. Vincent
at first defied him,[76] and considered moving the family out of the city, but in late
1883, he left Sien and the children.[77]

Poverty may have pushed Sien back into prostitution; the home became less happy
and Van Gogh may have felt family life was irreconcilable with his artistic
development. Sien gave her daughter to her mother, and baby Willem to her
brother.[78] Willem remembered visiting Rotterdam when he was about 12, when an
uncle tried to persuade Sien to marry to legitimise the child.[79] He believed Van Gogh
was his father, but the timing of his birth makes this unlikely.[80] Sien drowned herself
in the River Scheldt in 1904.[81]

In September 1883, Van Gogh moved to Drenthe in the northern Netherlands. In

December, driven by loneliness, he went to live with his parents, then in Nuenen,
North Brabant.[81]

Emerging artist

Nuenen and Antwerp (188386)

See also: Peasant Character Studies (Van Gogh series); Still life paintings by Vincent van
Gogh (Netherlands); and Drawings, water-colours and prints by Vincent van Gogh

The Potato Eaters, 1885. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

In Nuenen, Van Gogh focused on painting and drawing. Working outside and very
quickly, he completed sketches and paintings of weavers and their cottages.[82] From
August 1884, Margot Begemann, a neighbour's daughter ten years his senior, joined
him on his forays; she fell in love and he reciprocated, though less enthusiastically.
They wanted to marry, but neither side of their families were in favour. Margot was
distraught and took an overdose of strychnine, but survived after Van Gogh rushed
her to a nearby hospital.[75] On 26 March 1885, his father died of a heart attack.[83]

Van Gogh painted several groups of still lifes in 1885.[84] During his two-year stay in
Nuenen, he completed numerous drawings and watercolours, and nearly 200 oil
paintings. His palette consisted mainly of sombre earth tones, particularly dark brown,
and showed no sign of the vivid colours that distinguish his later work.[85]

There was interest from a dealer in Paris early in 1885.[86] Theo asked Vincent if he
had paintings ready to exhibit.[87] In May, Van Gogh responded with his first major
work, The Potato Eaters, and a series of "peasant character studies" which were the
culmination of several years of work.[88] When he complained that Theo was not
making enough effort to sell his paintings in Paris, his brother responded that they
were too dark, and not in keeping with the bright style of Impressionism.[85] In August
his work was publicly exhibited for the first time, in the shop windows of the dealer
Leurs in The Hague. One of his young peasant sitters became pregnant in September
1885; Van Gogh was accused of forcing himself upon her, and the village priest
forbade parishioners to model for him.[89]

Worn Out, pencil on watercolour paper, 1882. Van Gogh Museum,

Amsterdam [90]

Still Life with Open Bible, Extinguished Candle and Novel also Still Life with
Bible, 1885. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette, 188586. Van Gogh Museum,

Amsterdam


Peasant Woman Digging, or Woman with a Spade, Seen from Behind, 1885.
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

He moved to Antwerp that November, and rented a room above a paint dealer's shop
in the rue des Images (Lange Beeldekensstraat).[91] He lived in poverty and ate poorly,
preferring to spend the money Theo sent on painting materials and models. Bread,
coffee and tobacco became his staple diet. In February 1886 he wrote to Theo that he
could only remember eating six hot meals since the previous May. His teeth became
loose and painful.[92] In Antwerp he applied himself to the study of colour theory and
spent time in museumsparticularly studying the work of Peter Paul Rubens and
broadened his palette to include carmine, cobalt blue and emerald green. Van Gogh
bought Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands, later incorporating elements of
their style into the background of some of his paintings.[93] He was drinking heavily
again,[94] and was hospitalised between February and March 1886,[95] when he was
possibly also treated for syphilis.[96][note 6]

After his recovery, and despite his antipathy towards academic teaching, he took the
higher-level admission exams at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, and in
January 1886 matriculated in painting and drawing. He became ill and run down by
overwork, poor diet and excessive smoking.[99] He started to attend drawing classes
after plaster models at the Antwerp Academy on 18 January 1886. He quickly got into
trouble with Charles Verlat, the director of the Academy and teacher of a painting
class, because of his unconventional painting style. Van Gogh had also clashed with
the instructor of the drawing class Franz Vinck. Van Gogh finally started to attend the
drawing classes after antique plaster models given by Eugne Siberdt. Soon Siberdt
and van Gogh came into conflict when the latter did not comply with Siberdt's
requirement that drawings express the contour and concentrate on the line. When van
Gogh was required to draw the Venus of Milo during a drawing class, he produced the
limbless, naked torso of a Flemish peasant woman. Siberdt regarded this as defiance
against his artistic guidance and made corrections to van Gogh's drawing with his
crayon so vigorously that he tore the paper. Van Gogh then flew into a violent rage
and shouted at Siberdt: 'You clearly do not know what a young woman is like, God
damn it! A woman must have hips, buttocks, a pelvis in which she can carry a baby!'
According to some accounts this was the last time van Gogh attended classes at the
Academy and he left later for Paris.[100] On 31 March 1886, which was about a month
after the confrontation with Siberdt, the teachers of the Academy decided that 17
students, including van Gogh, had to repeat a year. The story that van Gogh was
expelled from the Academy by Siberdt is therefore unfounded.[101]
Paris (188688)
See also: Japonaiserie (Van Gogh) and Still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh (Paris)

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Portrait of Vincent van Gogh, 1887, pastel drawing, Van Gogh
Museum, Amsterdam

Van Gogh moved to Paris in March 1886 where he shared Theo's rue Laval apartment
in Montmartre, and studied at Fernand Cormon's studio. In June the brothers took a
larger flat at 54 rue Lepic.[102] In Paris, Vincent painted portraits of friends and
acquaintances, still life paintings, views of Le Moulin de la Galette, scenes in
Montmartre, Asnires and along the Seine. In 1885 in Antwerp he had become
interested in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and had used them to decorate the
walls of his studio; while in Paris he collected hundreds of them. He tried his hand at
Japonaiserie, tracing a figure from a reproduction on the cover of the magazine Paris
Illustre, The Courtesan or Oiran (1887), after Keisai Eisen, which he then graphically
enlarged in a painting.[103]

After seeing the portrait of Adolphe Monticelli at the Galerie Delareybarette, Van
Gogh adopted a brighter palette and a bolder attack, particularly in paintings such as
his Seascape at Saintes-Maries (1888).[104][105] Two years later, Vincent and Theo
paid for the publication of a book on Monticelli paintings, and Vincent bought some
of Monticelli's works to add to his collection.[106]

Van Gogh learned about Fernand Cormon's atelier from Theo.[107] He worked at the
studio in April and May 1886,[108] where he frequented the circle of the Australian
artist John Peter Russell,[109] and met fellow students mile Bernard, Louis Anquetin
and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec who painted a portrait of him in pastel. They met at
Julien "Pre" Tanguy's paint shop,[108] (which was, at that time, the only place where
Paul Czanne's paintings were displayed). In 1886, two large exhibitions were staged
there, showing Pointillism and Neo-impressionism for the first time, and bringing
attention to Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. Theo kept a stock of Impressionist
paintings in his gallery on boulevard Montmartre, but Van Gogh was slow to
acknowledge the new developments in art.[110]
Conflicts arose between the brothers. At the end of 1886 Theo found living with
Vincent to be "almost unbearable".[108] By early 1887, they were again at peace, and
Vincent had moved to Asnires, a northwestern suburb of Paris, where he got to know
Signac. He adopted elements of Pointillism, a technique in which a multitude of small
coloured dots are applied to the canvas so that when seen from a distance they create
an optical blend of hues. The style stresses the ability of complementary colours
including blue and orange to form vibrant contrasts.[87][108]

Le Moulin de Blute-Fin (1886) from the Le Moulin de la Galette and

Montmartre series'. Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo (F273)

Courtesan (after Eisen), 1887. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Portrait of Pre Tanguy, 1887. Muse Rodin, Paris



Flowering Plum Orchard (after Hiroshige), 1887. Van Gogh Museum,

Amsterdam

Still Life with Glass of Absinthe and a Carafe, 1887. Van Gogh Museum,
Amsterdam

While in Asnires Van Gogh painted parks, restaurants and the Seine, including
Bridges across the Seine at Asnires. In November 1887, Theo and Vincent
befriended Paul Gauguin who had just arrived in Paris.[111] Towards the end of the
year, Vincent arranged an exhibition alongside Bernard, Anquetin, and probably
Toulouse-Lautrec, at the Grand-Bouillon Restaurant du Chalet, 43 avenue de Clichy,
Montmartre. In a contemporary account, Bernard wrote that the exhibition was ahead
of anything else in Paris.[112] There Bernard and Anquetin sold their first paintings,
and Van Gogh exchanged work with Gauguin. Discussions on art, artists, and their
social situations started during this exhibition, continued and expanded to include
visitors to the show, like Camille Pissarro and his son Lucien, Signac and Seurat. In
February 1888, feeling worn out from life in Paris, Van Gogh left, having painted
more than 200 paintings during his two years there. Hours before his departure,
accompanied by Theo, he paid his first and only visit to Seurat in his studio.[113]

Artistic breakthrough

Arles (188889)
See also: Dcoration for the Yellow House, Langlois Bridge at Arles, and Saintes-Maries (Van
Gogh series)
The Yellow House, 1888. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Ill from drink and suffering from smoker's cough, in February 1888 Van Gogh sought
refuge in Arles.[14] He seems to have moved with thoughts of founding an art colony.
The Danish artist Christian Mourier-Petersen became his companion for two months,
and at first Arles appeared exotic. In a letter, he described it as a foreign country:
"The Zouaves, the brothels, the adorable little Arlsienne going to her First
Communion, the priest in his surplice, who looks like a dangerous rhinoceros, the
people drinking absinthe, all seem to me creatures from another world."[114]

The time in Arles became one of Van Gogh's more prolific periods: he completed 200
paintings, and more than 100 drawings and watercolours.[115] He was enchanted by the
local landscape and light; his works from this period are rich in yellow, ultramarine
and mauve. His paintings include harvests, wheat fields and general rural landmarks
from the area, including The Old Mill (1888), a picturesque structure bordering the
wheat fields.[116] This was one of seven canvases sent to Pont-Aven on 4 October
1888 in an exchange of works with Paul Gauguin, mile Bernard, Charles Laval and
others.[116]

The portrayals of the Arles landscape are informed by Van Gogh's Dutch upbringing;
the patchworks of fields and avenues appear flat and lacking perspective, but excel in
their use of colour.[117] His new-found appreciation is seen in the range and scope of
his work. In March 1888 he painted landscapes using a gridded "perspective frame";
three of the works were shown at the annual exhibition of the Socit des Artistes
Indpendants. In April, he was visited by the American artist Dodge MacKnight, who
was living nearby at Fontvieille.[118][119] On 1 May 1888, for 15 francs per month, he
signed a lease for the eastern wing of the Yellow House at 2 place Lamartine. The
rooms were unfurnished and had been uninhabited for months.[120]

On 7 May Van Gogh moved from the Htel Carrel to the Caf de la Gare,[121] having
befriended the proprietors, Joseph and Marie Ginoux. The Yellow House had to be
furnished before he could fully move in, but he was able to use it as a studio.[122] He
wanted a gallery to display his work, and started a series of paintings that eventually
included Van Gogh's Chair (1888), Bedroom in Arles (1888), The Night Caf (1888),
Caf Terrace at Night (September 1888), Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888), and
Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers (1888), all intended for the decoration for the
Yellow House.[123]

Van Gogh wrote that with The Night Caf he tried "to express the idea that the caf is
a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime".[124] When he visited
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in June, he gave lessons to a Zouave second lieutenant
Paul-Eugne Milliet[125] and painted boats on the sea and the village.[126] MacKnight
introduced Van Gogh to Eugne Boch, a Belgian painter who sometimes stayed in
Fontvieille, and the two exchanged visits in July.[125]

The Sower with Setting Sun, 1888. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries, June 1888. Van Gogh Museum,
Amsterdam

Bedroom in Arles, 1888. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam



The Old Mill, 1888. AlbrightKnox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Gauguin's visit (1888)

See also: Sunflowers (Van Gogh series)

Paul Gauguin, The Painter of Sunflowers: Portrait of Vincent van Gogh, 1888. Van Gogh
Museum, Amsterdam

When Gauguin agreed to visit Arles in 1888, Van Gogh hoped for friendship, and the
realisation of his idea of an artists' collective. While waiting, in August he painted
Sunflowers. When Boch visited again, Van Gogh painted a portrait of him, as well as
the study The Poet Against a Starry Sky.[127][note 7]

In preparation for Gauguin's visit, Van Gogh bought two beds on advice from the
station's postal supervisor Joseph Roulin, whose portrait he painted. On 17 September
he spent his first night in the still sparsely furnished Yellow House.[129] When
Gauguin consented to work and live in Arles with him, Van Gogh started to work on
the Dcoration for the Yellow House, probably the most ambitious effort he ever
undertook.[130] He completed two chair paintings: Van Gogh's Chair and Gauguin's
Chair.[131]

After much pleading from Van Gogh, Gauguin arrived in Arles on 23 October, and in
November the two painted together. Gauguin depicted Van Gogh in his The Painter of
Sunflowers; Van Gogh painted pictures from memory, following Gauguin's
suggestion. Among these "imaginative" paintings is Memory of the Garden at
Etten.[132][note 8] Their first joint outdoor venture was at the Alyscamps, when they
produced the pendants Les Alyscamps.[133] The single painting Gauguin completed
during his visit was Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers.[134]
Van Gogh and Gauguin visited Montpellier in December 1888, where they saw works
by Courbet and Delacroix in the Muse Fabre.[135] Their relationship began to
deteriorate; Van Gogh admired Gauguin and wanted to be treated as his equal, but
Gauguin was arrogant and domineering, which frustrated Van Gogh. They often
quarrelled; Van Gogh increasingly feared that Gauguin was going to desert him, and
the situation, which Van Gogh described as one of "excessive tension", rapidly
headed towards crisis point.[136]

The Night Caf, 1888. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut

The Red Vineyard, November 1888. Pushkin Museum, Moscow. Sold to Anna
Boch, 1890

Van Gogh's Chair, 1888. National Gallery, London

 Paul Gauguin's Armchair, 1888. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Hospital in Arles (December 1888)

See also: Hospital in Arles

Local newspaper report dated 30 December 1888 recording Van Gogh's self-mutilation.[137]

The exact sequence of events which led to Van Gogh's mutilation of his ear is not
known. Gauguin claimed, fifteen years later, that the night followed several instances
of physically threatening behaviour.[138] Their relationship was complex, and Theo
may have owed money to Gauguin, who was suspicious that the brothers were
exploiting him financially.[139] It seems likely that Van Gogh had realised that
Gauguin was planning to leave.[139] The following days saw heavy rain, leading to the
two men being shut in the Yellow House.[140] Gauguin reported that Van Gogh
followed when Gauguin left the house for a walk, and "rushed towards me, an open
razor in his hand".[140] This account is uncorroborated;[141] Gauguin was almost
certainly absent from the Yellow House that night, most likely in a hotel.[140]

After the altercation with Gauguin, Van Gogh returned to his room, where he was
assaulted by voices and severed his left ear with a razor (either wholly or in part;
accounts differ),[note 9] causing severe bleeding.[142] He bandaged the wound, wrapped
the ear in paper, and delivered the package to a woman at a brothel Van Gogh and
Gauguin both frequented.[142] Van Gogh was found unconscious the next morning by
a policeman and taken to hospital,[145][146] where Flix Rey, a young doctor still in
training, treated him. The ear was delivered to the hospital, but Rey did not attempt to
reattach it as too much time had passed.[140]

Van Gogh had no recollection of the event, suggesting that he may have suffered an
acute mental breakdown.[147] The hospital diagnosis was "acute mania with
generalised delirium",[148] and within a few days the local police ordered that he be
placed in hospital care.[149][150] Gauguin immediately notified Theo, who on 24
December had proposed marriage to his old friend Andries Bonger's sister
Johanna.[151] That evening Theo rushed to the station to board a night train to Arles.
He arrived on Christmas Day, comforted Vincent who seemed to be semi-lucid. That
evening he left Arles for the return trip to Paris.[152]

During the first days of his treatment, Van Gogh repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked
for Gauguin, who asked a policeman attending the case to "be kind enough, Monsieur,
to awaken this man with great care, and if he asks for me tell him I have left for Paris;
the sight of me might prove fatal for him."[153] Gauguin fled Arles, never to see Van
Gogh again. They continued to correspond and in 1890 Gauguin proposed they form a
studio in Antwerp. Other visitors to the hospital included Marie Ginoux and
Roulin.[154]

Despite a pessimistic diagnosis, Van Gogh recovered and returned to the Yellow
House on 7 January 1889.[155] He spent the following month between hospital and
home, suffering from hallucinations and delusions of poisoning.[156] In March, the
police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople (including the Ginoux
family) who described him as "le fou roux" (the redheaded madman);[149] Van Gogh
returned to hospital. Paul Signac visited him twice in March;[157] in April Van Gogh
moved into rooms owned by Dr Rey after floods damaged paintings in his own
home.[158] Two months later, he left Arles and voluntarily entered an asylum in Saint-
Rmy-de-Provence. Around this time, he wrote, "Sometimes moods of indescribable
anguish, sometimes moments when the veil of time and fatality of circumstances
seemed to be torn apart for an instant."[159]

Van Gogh gave his 1889 Portrait of Doctor Flix Rey to Dr Rey. The physician was
not fond of the painting and used it to repair a chicken coop, then gave it away.[160] In
2016, the portrait was housed at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and estimated to be
worth over $50 million.[161]

Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe, 1889, private collection

The Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles, 1889, Oskar Reinhart Collection "Am
Rmerholz", Winterthur, Switzerland


Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889, Courtauld Institute of Art, London

Ward in the Hospital in Arles, 1889, Oskar Reinhart Collection "Am

Rmerholz", Winterthur, Switzerland

Saint-Rmy (May 1889 May 1890)

Main article: Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rmy (Van Gogh series)

The Starry Night, June 1889. Museum of Modern Art, New York

Van Gogh entered the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum on 8 May 1889, accompanied

by his carer, Frdric Salles, a Protestant clergyman. Saint-Paul was a former
monastery in Saint-Rmy, located less than 30 kilometres (19 mi) from Arles, and
was run by a former naval doctor, Thophile Peyron. Van Gogh had two cells with
barred windows, one of which was he used as a studio.[162] The clinic and its garden
became the main subjects of his paintings. He made several studies of the hospital's
interiors, such as Vestibule of the Asylum and Saint-Rmy (September 1889). Some of
his works from this time are characterised by swirls, such as The Starry Night. He was
allowed short supervised walks, during which time he painted cypresses and olive
trees, including Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background 1889, Cypresses
1889, Cornfield with Cypresses (1889), Country road in Provence by Night (1890). In
September 1889 he produced two further versions of Bedroom in Arles.[163]

Limited access to life outside the clinic resulted in a shortage of subject matter. Van
Gogh instead worked on interpretations of other artist's paintings, such as Millet's The
Sower and Noonday Rest, and variations on his own earlier work. Van Gogh was an
admirer of the Realism of Jules Breton, Gustave Courbet and Millet,[164] and he
compared his copies to a musician's interpreting Beethoven.[165]

His The Round of the Prisoners (1890) was painted after an engraving by Gustave
Dor (18321883). Tralbaut suggests that the face of the prisoner in the centre of the
painting looking towards the viewer is Van Gogh himself;[166] Jan Hulsker discounts
this.[167]

Between February and April 1890 Van Gogh suffered a severe relapse. Depressed and
unable to bring himself to write, he was still able to paint and draw a little during this
time,[168] and he later wrote to Theo that he had made a few small canvases "from
memory ... reminisces of the North".[169] Among these was Two Peasant Women
Digging in a Snow-Covered Field at Sunset. Hulsker believes that this small group of
paintings formed the nucleus of many drawings and study sheets depicting landscapes
and figures that Van Gogh worked on during this time. He comments that this short
period was the only time that Van Gogh's illness had a significant effect on his
work.[170] Van Gogh asked his mother and his brother to send him drawings and rough
work he had done in the early 1880s so he could work on new paintings from his old
sketches.[171] Belonging to this period is Sorrowing Old Man ("At Eternity's Gate"), a
colour study Hulsker describes as "another unmistakable remembrance of times long
past".[90][172] His late paintings show an artist at the height of his abilities, according to
the art critic Robert Hughes, "longing for concision and grace".[114]

The Round of the Prisoners (after Dor), 1890. Pushkin Museum, Moscow


The Sower, (after Jean-Franois Millet), 1888. Krller-Mller Museum,

Otterlo

Two Peasant Women Digging in a Snow-Covered Field at Sunset, (after Jean-

Franois Millet), 1890. Foundation E.G. Bhrle Collection, Zurich,
Switzerland

Sorrowing Old Man ('At Eternity's Gate'), 1890. Krller-Mller Museum,

Otterlo [90]

Albert Aurier praised his work in the Mercure de France in January 1890, and
described him as "a genius".[173] In February Van Gogh painted five versions of
L'Arlsienne (Madame Ginoux), based on a charcoal sketch Gauguin had produced
when she sat for both artists in November 1888.[174][note 10] Also in February, Van
Gogh was invited by Les XX, a society of avant-garde painters in Brussels, to
participate in their annual exhibition. At the opening dinner a Les XX member, Henry
de Groux, insulted Van Gogh's work. Toulouse-Lautrec demanded satisfaction, and
Signac declared he would continue to fight for Van Gogh's honour if Lautrec
surrendered. De Groux apologised for the slight and left the group. Later, while Van
Gogh's exhibit was on display with the Artistes Indpendants in Paris, Claude Monet
said that his work was the best in the show.[175] After the birth of his nephew, Van
Gogh wrote, "I started right away to make a picture for him, to hang in their bedroom,
branches of white almond blossom against a blue sky."[176]

Auvers-sur-Oise (MayJuly 1890)

See also: Houses at Auvers, Auvers size 30 canvases, and Double-squares and Squares

White House at Night, 1890. Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, painted six weeks before
the artist's death

In May 1890 Van Gogh left the clinic in Saint-Rmy to move nearer to both Dr Paul
Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise and to Theo. Gachet was an amateur painter and had
treated several other artists Camille Pissarro had recommended him. Van Gogh's
first impression was that Gachet was "iller than I am, it seemed to me, or let's say just
as much."[177]

Tree Roots, July 1890, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

The painter Charles Daubigny moved to Auvers in 1861, and in turn drew other artists
there, including Camille Corot and Honor Daumier. In July 1890, Van Gogh
completed two paintings of Daubigny's Garden, one of which is likely his final
work.[178]

The Church at Auvers, 1890. Muse d'Orsay, Paris

During his last weeks, at Saint-Rmy, his thoughts returned to "memories of the
North",[169] and several of the approximately 70 oils, painted during as many days in
Auvers-sur-Oise, are reminiscent of northern scenes.[179] In June 1890, he painted
several portraits of his doctor, including Portrait of Dr Gachet, and his only etching.
In each the emphasis is on Gachet's melancholic disposition.[180] There are other
paintings which are probably unfinished, including Thatched Cottages by a Hill.[178]
In July, Van Gogh wrote that he had become absorbed "in the immense plain against
the hills, boundless as the sea, delicate yellow".[181] He had first become captivated by
the fields in May, when the wheat was young and green. In July he described to Theo
"vast fields of wheat under turbulent skies".[182]

He wrote that they represented his "sadness and extreme loneliness", and that the
"canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words, that is, how healthy and
invigorating I find the countryside".[183] Wheatfield with Crows, from July 1890, is a
painting Hulsker discusses as being associated with "melancholy and extreme
loneliness".[184] Hulsker identifies seven oil paintings from Auvers that follow the
completion of Wheatfield with Crows.[185]

Death

Main articles: Death of Vincent van Gogh, Auberge Ravoux, and Vincent van Gogh's health

Article on Van Gogh's death from L'cho Pontoisien, 7 August 1890

On 27 July 1890, aged 37, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a 7mm
Lefaucheux broche revolver.[186][187] There were no witnesses and he died 30 hours
after the incident.[160] The shooting may have taken place in the wheat field in which
he had been painting, or a local barn.[188] The bullet was deflected by a rib and passed
through his chest without doing apparent damage to internal organs probably
stopped by his spine. He was able to walk back to the Auberge Ravoux, where he was
attended to by two doctors, but without a surgeon present the bullet could not be
removed. The doctors tended to him as best they could, then left him alone in his
room, smoking his pipe. The following morning Theo rushed to his brother's side,
finding him in good spirits. But within hours Vincent began to fail, suffering from an
untreated infection resulting from the wound. He died in the early hours of 29 July.
According to Theo, Vincent's last words were: "The sadness will last
forever".[189][190][191][192]

Vincent and Theo's graves at Auvers-sur-Oise

Van Gogh was buried on 30 July, in the municipal cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise. The
funeral was attended by Theo van Gogh, Andries Bonger, Charles Laval, Lucien
Pissarro, mile Bernard, Julien Tanguy and Paul Gachet, among twenty family,
friends and locals. Theo had been ill, and his health began to decline further after his
brother's death. Weak and unable to come to terms with Vincent's absence, he died on
25 January 1891 at Den Dolder, and was buried in Utrecht.[193] In 1914, Johanna van
Gogh-Bonger had Theo's body exhumed and moved from Utrecht to be re-buried
alongside Vincent's at Auvers-sur-Oise.[194]

There have been numerous debates as to the nature of Van Gogh's illness and its
effect on his work, and many retrospective diagnoses have been proposed. The
consensus is that Van Gogh had an episodic condition with periods of normal
functioning.[195] Perry was the first to suggest bipolar disorder in 1947,[196] and this
has been supported by the psychiatrists Hemphill and Blumer.[197][198] Biochemist
Wilfred Arnold has countered that the symptoms are more consistent with acute
intermittent porphyria, noting that the popular link between bipolar disorder and
creativity might be spurious.[195] Temporal lobe epilepsy with bouts of depression has
also been suggested.[198] Whatever the diagnosis, his condition was likely worsened
by malnutrition, overwork, insomnia and alcohol.[198]

Style and works

Artistic development

Starry Night Over the Rhone, 1888. Muse d'Orsay, Paris

Van Gogh drew, and painted with watercolours while at school, but only a few
examples survive and the authorship of some has been challenged.[199] When he took
up art as an adult, he began at an elementary level. In early 1882, his uncle, Cornelis
Marinus, owner of a well-known gallery of contemporary art in Amsterdam, asked for
drawings of The Hague. Van Gogh's work did not live up to expectations. Marinus
offered a second commission, specifying the subject matter in detail, but was again
disappointed with the result. Van Gogh persevered; he experimented with lighting in
his studio using variable shutters, and with different drawing materials. For more than
a year he worked on single figures highly elaborate studies in black and white,[note 11]
which at the time gained him only criticism. Later, they were recognised as early
masterpieces.[201]

In August 1882 Theo gave Vincent money to buy materials for working en plein air.
Vincent wrote that he could now "go on painting with new vigour".[202] From early
1883 he worked on multi-figure compositions. He had some of them photographed,
but when his brother remarked that they lacked liveliness and freshness, he destroyed
them and turned to oil painting. Van Gogh turned to well-known Hague School artists
like Weissenbruch and Blommers, and received technical advice from them, as well
as from painters like De Bock and Van der Weele, both of the Hague School's second
generation.[203] When he moved to Nuenen after the period in Drenthe he began
several large paintings but destroyed most of them. The Potato Eaters and its
companion pieces are the only ones to have survived.[203] Following a visit to the
Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh wrote of his admiration for the quick, economical
brushwork of the Dutch Masters, especially Rembrandt and Frans Hals.[204][note 12] He
was aware that many of his faults were due to lack of experience and technical
expertise,[203] so in November 1885 he travelled to Antwerp and later Paris to learn
and develop his skills.[205]

Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background, 1889. Museum of Modern Art, New York

Theo criticised The Potato Eaters for its dark palette, which he thought unsuitable for
a modern style.[206] During Van Gogh's stay in Paris between 1886 and 1887, he tried
to master a new, lighter palette. His Portrait of Pre Tanguy (1887) shows his success
with the brighter palette, and is evidence of an evolving personal style.[207] Charles
Blanc's treatise on colour interested him greatly, and led him to work with
complementary colours. Van Gogh came to believe that the effect of colour went
beyond the descriptive; he said that "colour expresses something in itself".[208][209]
According to Hughes, Van Gogh perceived colour as having a "psychological and
moral weight", as exemplified in the garish reds and greens of The Night Cafe, a work
he wanted to "express the terrible passions of humanity".[210] Yellow meant the most
to him, because it symbolised emotional truth. He used yellow as a symbol for
sunlight, life, and God.[211]

Van Gogh strove to be a painter of rural life and nature,[212] and during his first
summer in Arles he used his new palette to paint landscapes and traditional rural
life.[213] His belief that a power existed behind the natural led him to try to capture a
sense of that power, or the essence of nature in his art, sometimes through the use of
symbols.[214] His renditions of the sower, at first copied from Jean-Franois Millet,
reflect Van Gogh's religious beliefs: the sower as Christ sowing life beneath the hot
sun.[215] These were themes and motifs he returned to often to rework and develop.[216]
His paintings of flowers are filled with symbolism, but rather than use traditional
Christian iconography he made up his own, where life is lived under the sun and work
is an allegory of life.[217] In Arles, having gained confidence after painting spring
blossoms and learning to capture bright sunlight, he was ready to paint The Sower.[208]
Memory of the Garden at Etten, 1888. Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg

Van Gogh stayed within what he called the "guise of reality",[218] and was critical of
overly stylised works.[219] He wrote afterwards that the abstraction of Starry Night had
gone too far and that reality had "receded too far in the background".[219] Hughes
describes it as a moment of extreme visionary ecstasy: the stars are in a great whirl,
reminiscent of Hokusai's Great Wave, the movement in the heaven above is reflected
by the movement of the cypress on the earth below, and the painter's vision is
"translated into a thick, emphatic plasma of paint".[220]

Between 1885 and his death in 1890, Van Gogh appears to have been building an
oeuvre,[221] a collection that reflected his personal vision, and could be commercially
successful. He was influenced by Blanc's definition of style, that a true painting
required optimal use of colour, perspective and brushstrokes. Van Gogh applied the
word "purposeful" to paintings he thought he had mastered, as opposed to those he
thought of as studies.[222] He painted many series of studies;[218] most of which were
still lifes, many executed as colour experiments or as gifts to friends.[223] The work in
Arles contributed considerably to his oeuvre: those he thought the most important
from that time were The Sower, Night Cafe, Memory of the Garden in Etten and
Starry Night. With their broad brushstrokes, inventive perspectives, colours, contours
and designs, these paintings represent the style he sought.[219]