Van Gogh's Paris
Van Gogh lived in Paris with his brother Theo from 1886 to early 1888, and in those two years his dark Dutch palette turned bright.
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About the series
He arrived in March 1886 and soon moved with Theo into a flat on the rue Lepic in Montmartre, which was still half village: windmills, allotments and dance gardens on the slope of the hill. The views from his window over the roofs of Paris, and the Moulin de la Galette and its neighbours, are from his first months there.
In Paris he met Pissarro, Signac, Émile Bernard and Toulouse-Lautrec, saw the Impressionists for the first time and started buying Japanese prints. By 1887 he was painting along the Seine at Asnières with Bernard and Signac in short, separate strokes of pure colour. The portrait of Père Tanguy, the paint seller, sits in front of a wall of those prints. Agostina Segatori ran the Café du Tambourin, where Vincent showed his prints and his own work.
The Montmartre views are small and earthy. The Asnières river scenes from 1887 are bright and airy, closer to what came next in Arles.












































