A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable surface such as concrete, cobblestone or brick. Portions may also be smoothed with asphalt, embedded with rails, or otherwise prepared to accommodate non-pedestrian traffic.

Originally the word "street" simply meant a paved road (Latin: "via strata"). The word "street" is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for "road", for example in connection with the ancient Watling Street, but city residents and urban planners draw a crucial modern distinction: a road's main function is transportation, while streets facilitate public interaction. Examples of streets include pedestrian streets, alleys, and city-centre streets too crowded for road vehicles to pass. Conversely, highways and motorways are types of roads, but few would refer to them as streets.

Etymology

The word ''street'' has its origins in the Latin ''strata'' (meaning "paved road"); it is thus related to ''stratum'' and ''stratification''. Ancient Greek ''Stratos'' means army; Greeks originally built roads to move their armies. Old English applied the word to Roman roads in Britain such as Ermin Street, Watling Street, etc. Later it acquired a dialectical meaning of "straggling village", which were often laid out on the verges of Roman roads and these settlements often became named Stretton. In the Middle Ages, a ''road'' was a way people travelled, with ''street'' applied specifically to paved ways.

Role in the built environment

The street is a public easement, one of the few shared between all sorts of people. As a component of the built environment as ancient as human habitation, the street sustains a range of activities vital to civilization. Its roles are as numerous and diverse as its ever-changing cast of characters.

Streets can be loosely categorized as main streets and side streets. Main streets are usually broad with a relatively high level of activity. Commerce and public interaction are more visible on main streets, and vehicles may use them for longer-distance travel. Side streets are quieter, often residential in use and character, and may be used for vehicular parking.

Circulation

Circulation, or less broadly, transportation, is perhaps a street's most visible use, and certainly among the most important. The unrestricted movement of people and goods within a city is essential to its commerce and vitality, and streets provide the physical space for this activity.

In the interest of order and efficiency, an effort may be made to segregate different types of traffic. This is usually done by carving a road through the middle for motorists, reserving pavements on either side for pedestrians; other arrangements allow for streetcars, trolleys, and even wastewater and rainfall runoff ditches (common in Japan and India). In the mid-20th century, as the automobile threatened to overwhelm city streets with pollution and ghastly accidents, many urban theorists came to see this segregation as not only helpful but necessary in order to maintain mobility. Le Corbusier, for one, perceived an ever-stricter segregation of traffic as an essential affirmation of social order — a desirable, and ultimately inevitable, expression of modernity. To this end, proposals were advanced to build "vertical streets" where road vehicles, pedestrians, and trains would each occupy their own levels. Such an arrangement, it was said, would allow for even denser development in the future.

These plans were never implemented comprehensively, a fact which today's urban theorists regard as fortunate for vitality and diversity. Rather, vertical segregation is applied on a piecemeal basis, as in sewers, utility poles, depressed highways, elevated railways, common utility ducts, the extensive complex of underground malls surrounding Tokyo Station and the Ōtemachi subway station, the elevated pedestrian skyway networks of Minneapolis and Calgary, the underground cities of Atlanta and Montreal, and the multilevel streets in Chicago.

Transportation is often misunderstood to be the defining characteristic, or even the sole purpose, of a street. This has not been the case since the word "street" came to be limited to urban situations, and even in the automobile age, is still demonstrably false. A street may be temporarily blocked to all through traffic in order to secure the space for other uses, such as a street fair, a flea market, children at play, filming a movie, or construction work. Many streets are bracketed by bollards or Jersey barriers so as to keep out vehicles. These measures are often taken in a city's busiest areas, the "destination" districts, when the volume of activity outgrows the capacity of private passenger vehicles to support it. A feature universal to all streets is a human-scale design that gives its users the space and security to feel engaged in their surroundings, whatever through traffic may pass.

Vehicular traffic

Despite this, the operator of a motor vehicle may (incompletely) regard a street as merely a thoroughfare for vehicular travel or parking. As far as concerns the driver, a street can be one-way or two-way: vehicles on one-way streets may travel in only one direction, while those on two-way streets may travel both ways. One way streets typically have signs reading "ONE WAY" and an arrow showing the direction of allowed travel. Most two-way streets are wide enough for at least two lanes of traffic.

Which lane is for which direction of traffic depends on what country the street is located in. On broader two-way streets, there is often a ''center line'' marked down the middle of the street separating those lanes on which vehicular traffic goes in one direction from other lanes in which traffic goes in the opposite direction. Occasionally, there may be a median strip separating lanes of opposing traffic. If there is more than one lane going in one direction on a main street, these lanes may be separated by intermittent ''lane lines'' marked on the street pavement. Side streets often do not have center lines or lane lines.

Parking for vehicles

Many streets, especially side streets in residential areas, have an extra lane's width on either or both sides for parallel parking. Most minor side streets allowing free parallel parking do not have pavement markings designating the parking lane. Main streets more often have parking lanes marked. Some streets are too busy or narrow for parking on the side. Sometimes parking on the sides of streets is allowed only at certain times. Curbside signs often state regulations about parking. Some streets, particularly in business areas, may have parking meters into which coins must be paid to allow parking in the adjacent space for a limited time. Other parking meters work on a credit card and ticket basis or pay and display. Parking lane markings on the pavement may designate the meter corresponding to a parking space. Some wide streets with light traffic allow ''angle parking''.

Sidewalk and bicycle traffic

Sidewalks (US usage) or pavements (UK usage) are often located alongside on one or usually both sides of the street within the public land strips beyond the curbs. Sidewalks serve a traffic purpose, by making walking easier and more attractive, but they also serve a social function, allowing neighbors to meet and interact on their walks. They also can foster economic activity, such as window shopping and sidewalk cafes. Some studies have found that shops on streets with sidewalks get more customers than similar shops without sidewalks.

An important element of sidewalk design is accessibility for persons with disabilities. Features that make sidewalks more accessible include curb ramps, tactile paving and accessible traffic signals. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires accessibility improvement on new and reconstructed streets within the US.

In most jurisdictions, bicycles are legally allowed to use streets, and required to follow the same laws as motor vehicle traffic, except those inapplicable by their nature, such as emission inspections. Where the volume of bicycle traffic warrants and available right-of-way allows, provisions may be made to separate bicyclists from motor vehicle traffic. Wider lanes may be provided next to the curb, or shoulders may provided. Bicycle lanes may be used on busy streets to provide some separation between bicycle traffic and motor vehicle traffic. The bicycle lane may be placed between the travel lanes and the parking lanes, or between the parking lanes and the curb.

Vehicular amenities and roadside hardware

Often, a curb is used to separate the vehicle traffic lanes from the adjacent sidewalk area. Street signs, parking meters, bicycle stands, benches, traffic signals, and street lights are often found adjacent to streets. They may be behind the sidewalk, or between the sidewalk and the curb.

Landscaping

There may be a strip of land between the vehicle-drivable part of the street and the pavement on either side of the street, which can be called the ''parkway'' or tree lawn. Grass and trees are often grown there for landscaping the sides of the street, or it may be filled with bricks for a decorative effect. Alternatively, there may be openings in wider pavements in which trees grow. These are often placed for beautification, but are increasingly being used to control stormwater.

Utilities

Although primarily used for traffic, streets are important corridors for utilities such as electric power, communications such as telephone, cable television and fiber optic lines, storm and sanitary sewers, and natural gas lines.

Street numbering

Practically all public streets in Western countries and the majority elsewhere (though not in Japan; see Japanese addressing system) are given a street name or at least a number to identify them and any addresses located along the streets. Alleys typically do not have names. The length of a lot of land along a street is referred to as the ''frontage'' of the lot.

Interaction

A street may assume the role of a town square for its regulars. Jane Jacobs, an economist and prominent urbanist, wrote extensively on the ways that interaction among the people who live and work on a particular street—"eyes on the street"—can reduce crime, encourage the exchange of ideas, and generally make the world a better place.

Identity

A street can often serve as the catalyst for the neighborhood's prosperity, culture and solidarity. New Orleans’ Bourbon Street is famous not only for its active nightlife but also for its role as the center of the city’s French Quarter. Similarly, the Bowery has at various times been New York City's main highway, theater district, red-light district, skid row, restaurant supply district, and the center of the nation's underground punk scene. Madison Avenue and Fleet Street are so strongly identified with their respective most famous types of commerce, that their names are sometimes applied to firms located elsewhere. Other streets mark divisions between neighborhoods of a city. For example, Yonge Street divides Toronto into east and west sides, and East Capitol Street divides Washington, D.C. into north and south.

Some streets are associated with the beautification of a town or city. Greenwood, Mississippi's Grand Boulevard was once named one of America's ten most beautiful streets by the U.S. Chambers of Commerce and the Garden Clubs of America. The 1000 oak trees lining Grand Boulevard were planted in 1916 by Sally Humphreys Gwin, a charter member of the Greenwood Garden Club. In 1950, Gwin received a citation from the National Congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution in recognition of her work in the conservation of trees.

Streets also tend to aggregate establishments of similar nature and character. East 9th Street in Manhattan, for example, offers a cluster of Japanese restaurants, clothing stores, and cultural venues. In Washington, D.C., 17th Street and P Street are well-known as epicenters of the city's (relatively small) gay culture. Many cities have a Radio Row or Restaurant Row. Like in Philadelphia there is a small street called Jewelers' row giving the identity of a "Diamond district". This phenomenon is the subject of urban location theory in economics.

As distinct from other spaces

A road, like a street, is often paved and used for travel. However, a street is characterized by the degree and quality of street life it facilitates, whereas a road serves primarily as a through passage for road vehicles or (less frequently) pedestrians. Buskers, beggars, boulevardiers, patrons of pavement cafés, peoplewatchers, streetwalkers, and a diversity of other characters are habitual users of a street; the same people would not typically be found on a road.

In rural and suburban environments where street life is rare, the terms "street" and "road" are frequently considered interchangeable. Still, even here, what is called a "street" is usually a smaller thoroughfare, such as a road within a housing development feeding directly into individual driveways. In the last half of the 20th century these streets often abandoned the tradition of a rigid, rectangular grid, and instead were designed to discourage through traffic. This and other traffic calming methods provided quiet for families and play space for children. Adolescent suburbanites find, in attenuated form, the amenities of street life in shopping malls where vehicles are forbidden.

If a road connects places, then a street connects people. One may "hit the road" to see the wonders of the world—Jack Kerouac famously chronicled one such journey—but the latest bling will "hit the streets" before it ever appears on a road. It is "on the street" where one hears an interesting rumor, where one bumps into an old acquaintance, where one acquires street smarts. One seldom sees a "road" vendor except of fresh produce, or a "road" performer. You'll never find yourself on a long "street" to nowhere or under assault by a violent "road" gang, hence politicians seldom view with alarm the prevalence of "crime in the roads". The street, not the road is home to the homeless unless they are hoboes, and even Kerouac's hero finally returned to find his friends on a New York street.

A town square or plaza is a little more like a street, but a town square is rarely paved with asphalt and may not make any concessions for through traffic at all.

Nomenclature

There is a haphazard relationship, at best, between a thoroughfare's function and its name. For example, London's Abbey Road serves all the vital functions of a street, despite its name, and locals are more apt to refer to the "street" outside than the "road". A desolate road in rural Montana, on the other hand, may bear a sign proclaiming it "Davidson Street", but this does not make it a "street" except in the original sense of a paved road.

In the United Kingdom many towns will refer to their main thoroughfare as the High Street (in the United States it would be called the Main Street — however, occasionally "Main Street" in a city or town is a street other than the ''de facto'' main thoroughfare), and many of the ways leading off it will be named "Road" despite the urban setting. Thus the town's so-called "Roads" will actually be more street like than a road.

Some streets may even be called highways. Hurontario Street in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, is commonly referred to as "Highway 10" — even though such a highway designation no longer officially exists. This is probably due to the fact that the street is a modern suburban arterial that was urbanized after decades of having the status and function a true highway, so people continued to use the number because of force of habit.

In some other English-speaking countries, such as New Zealand and Australia, cities are often divided by a main "Road," with "Streets" leading from this "Road", or are divided by thoroughfares known as "Streets" or "Roads" with no apparent differentiation between the two. In Auckland, for example, the main shopping precinct is around Queen Street and Karangahape Road.

Streets have existed for as long as humans have lived in permanent settlements (see civilization). However, modern civilization in much of the New World developed around transportation provided by motor vehicles. In some parts of the English-speaking world, such as North America, many think of the street as a thoroughfare for vehicular traffic first and foremost. In this view, pedestrian traffic is incidental to the street's purpose; a street consists of a thoroughfare running through the middle (in essence, a road), and may or may not have pavements along the sides.

In an even narrower sense, some may think of a street as only the vehicle-driven and parking part of the thoroughfare. Thus, pavements and tree lawns would not be thought of as part of the street. A mother may tell her toddlers "Don't go out into the street, so you don't get hit by a car."

Among urban residents of the English-speaking world, the word appears to carry its original connotations (i.e. the facilitation of traffic as a prime purpose, and "street life" as an incidental benefit). For instance, a ''New York Times'' writer lets casually slip the observation that automobile-laden Houston Street is "a street that can hardly be called 'street' anymore, transformed years ago into an eight-lane raceway that alternately resembles a Nascar event and a parking lot." Published in the paper's Metro section, the article evidently presumes an audience with an innate grasp of the modern urban role of the street. To the readers of the Metro section, vehicular traffic does not reinforce, but rather detracts from, the essential "street-ness" of a street.

At least one map has been made to illustrate the geography of naming conventions for thoroughfares; street, avenue, boulevard, circle, and other suffixes are contrasted against one another.

See also

Built environment

Intersection

Living street

''Manual for Streets'' (in the UK)

Spreuerhofstraße (Narrowest street in the World)

Pedestrian-friendly

Pedestrian street, Auto-free zone

Road

Segregated cycle facilities

Street furniture

Street reclamation

Street suffix

Urban car

Urban street

References

External links

A virtual exhibition on the history of streets

AskOxford: What is the difference between a 'street' and a 'road'?

streetnote, street music Live street music and musicians from the streets of the USA

Biannual exhibition of poetry and documentary about streets and traffic.

Streetsblog – News focusing on streets and street life in the modern urban landscape. (No affiliation.)

What distinguishes a street from a lane from a road from a boulevard, etc.? – An ''Ask Yahoo!'' editor's examination of the issue.

A Treatise on Highway Construction, Designed as a Text-book and Work of Reference for All who May be Engaged in the Location, Construction, Or Maintenance of Roads, Streets, and Pavements, By Austin Thomas Byrne, 1900 – Boston appears to be the first city in the United States to pave its streets, by 1663, many with pebbles.

Famous streets, roads and byways

Category:Types of roads

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Coordinates	00°59′13″N49°56′24″N
colour	#DEDEE9
name	Sherlock Holmes
series	Sherlock Holmes
first	''A Study in Scarlet''
creator	Arthur Conan Doyle
gender	Male
occupation	Consulting detective
family	Mycroft Holmes (brother)
nationality	British }}

Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve difficult cases.

Holmes, who first appeared in publication in 1887, was featured in four novels and 56 short stories. The first story, A Study in Scarlet, appeared in ''Beeton's Christmas Annual'' in 1887 and the second, ''The Sign of the Four'', in ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine'' in 1890. The character grew tremendously in popularity with the beginning of the first series of short stories in ''Strand Magazine'' in 1891; further series of short stories and two novels published in serial form appeared between then and 1927. The stories cover a period from around 1880 up to 1914.

All but four stories are narrated by Holmes's friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson; two are narrated by Holmes himself ("The Blanched Soldier" and "The Lion's Mane") and two others are written in the third person ("The Mazarin Stone" and "His Last Bow"). In two stories ("The Musgrave Ritual" and "The ''Gloria Scott''"), Holmes tells Watson the main story from his memories, while Watson becomes the narrator of the frame story. The first and fourth novels, ''A Study in Scarlet'' and ''The Valley of Fear'', each include a long interval of omniscient narration recounting events unknown both to Holmes and to Watson.

Inspiration for the character of Holmes

Doyle said that the character of Sherlock Holmes was inspired by Dr. Joseph Bell, for whom Doyle had worked as a clerk at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Like Holmes, Bell was noted for drawing large conclusions from the smallest observations. Sir Henry Littlejohn, Lecturer on Forensic Medicine and Public Health at the Royal College of Surgeons, is also cited as a source for Holmes. Littlejohn served as Police Surgeon and Medical Officer of Health of Edinburgh, providing for Doyle a link between medical investigation and the detection of crime.

Life

Early life

Explicit details about Sherlock Holmes's life outside of the adventures recorded by Dr. Watson are few and far between in Conan Doyle's original stories; nevertheless, incidental details about his early life and extended families portray a loose biographical picture of the detective.

An estimate of Holmes' age in the story "His Last Bow" places his birth in 1854; the story is set in August 1914 and he is described as being 60 years of age. Commonly, the date is cited as 6 January. However, an argument for a later birthdate is posited by author Laurie R. King, based on two of Conan Doyle's stories: ''A Study in Scarlet'' and ''"The Gloria Scott" Adventure''. Certain details in ''"The Gloria Scott" Adventure'' indicate Holmes finished his second and final year at university in either 1880 or 1885. Watson's own account of his wounding in the Second Afghan War and subsequent return to England in ''A Study in Scarlet'' place his moving in with Holmes in either early 1881 or 1882. Together, these suggest Holmes left university in 1880; if he began university at the age of 17, his birth year would likely be 1861.

Holmes states that he first developed his methods of deduction while an undergraduate. The author Dorothy L. Sayers suggested that, given details in two of the Adventures, Holmes must have been at Cambridge rather than Oxford and that "of all the Cambridge colleges, Sidney Sussex (College) perhaps offered the greatest number of advantages to a man in Holmes’ position and, in default of more exact information, we may tentatively place him there".

His earliest cases, which he pursued as an amateur, came from fellow university students. According to Holmes, it was an encounter with the father of one of his classmates that led him to take up detection as a profession, and he spent the six years following university working as a consulting detective, before financial difficulties led him to take Watson as a roommate, at which point the narrative of the stories begins.

From 1881, Holmes was described as having lodgings at 221B, Baker Street, London, from where he runs his consulting detective service. 221B is an apartment up 17 steps, stated in an early manuscript to be at the "upper end" of the road. Until the arrival of Dr. Watson, Holmes worked alone, only occasionally employing agents from the city's underclass, including a host of informants and a group of street children he calls "the Baker Street Irregulars". The Irregulars appear in three stories: "A Study in Scarlet," "The Sign of the Four," and "The Adventure of the Crooked Man".

Little is said of Holmes's family. His parents were unmentioned in the stories and he merely states that his ancestors were "country squires". In "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", Holmes claims that his great-uncle was Vernet, the French artist. His brother, Mycroft, seven years his senior, is a government official who appears in three stories and is mentioned in one other story. Mycroft has a unique civil service position as a kind of memory-man or walking database for all aspects of government policy. Mycroft is described as even more gifted than Sherlock in matters of observation and deduction, but he lacks Sherlock's drive and energy, preferring to spend his time at ease in the Diogenes Club, described as "a club for the most un-clubbable men in London".

Life with Dr. Watson

Holmes shares the majority of his professional years with his good friend and chronicler Dr. John H. Watson, who lives with Holmes for some time before his marriage in 1887, and again after his wife's death; his residence is maintained by his landlady, Mrs. Hudson.

Watson has two roles in Holmes's life. First, he gives practical assistance in the conduct of his cases; he is the detective's right-hand man, acting variously as look-out, decoy, accomplice and messenger. Second, he is Holmes's chronicler (his "Boswell" as Holmes refers to him). Most of the Holmes stories are frame narratives, written from Watson's point of view as summaries of the detective's most interesting cases. Holmes is often described as criticising Watson's writings as sensational and populist, suggesting that they neglect to accurately and objectively report the pure calculating "science" of his craft.

Nevertheless, Holmes's friendship with Watson is his most significant relationship. In several stories, Holmes's fondness for Watson—often hidden beneath his cold, intellectual exterior—is revealed. For instance, in "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs", Watson is wounded in a confrontation with a villain; although the bullet wound proves to be "quite superficial", Watson is moved by Holmes's reaction:

In all, Holmes is described as being in active practice for 23 years, with Watson documenting his cases for 17 of them.

Retirement

In "His Last Bow", Holmes has retired to a small farm on the Sussex Downs in 1903–1904. Sussex Downs is another name for South Downs, the name of a range of chalk hills in Sussex, overlooking the English Channel. They are opposite to the North Downs, a parallel range stretching from Farnham in Surrey across the entire width of Kent. "Down" is from the Old English "dun," meaning a hill. Holmes specifically retired to a farm in the downs, 8 km (5 miles) from the town of Eastbourne as is chronicled by Watson in his preface to the series of stories entitled "His Last Bow." It is here where he takes up the hobby of beekeeping as his primary occupation, eventually producing a "Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen". The story features Holmes and Watson coming out of retirement one last time to aid the war effort. Only one adventure, "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane", which is narrated by Holmes as he pursues the case as an amateur, takes place during the detective's retirement. The details of his death are not known, but he lives on to this day through the records of his thrilling cases, and will always be remembered and regarded as the "World's Greatest Detective".

Habits and personality

Watson describes Holmes as "bohemian" in habits and lifestyle. According to Watson, Holmes is an eccentric, with no regard for contemporary standards of tidiness or good order. In ''The Musgrave Ritual'', Watson describes Holmes thus:

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What appears to others as chaos, however, is to Holmes a wealth of useful information. Throughout the stories, Holmes would dive into his apparent mess of random papers and artefacts, only to retrieve precisely the specific document or eclectic item he was looking for.

Watson frequently makes note of Holmes's erratic eating habits. The detective is often described as starving himself at times of intense intellectual activity, such as during "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder", wherein, according to Watson:

His chronicler does not consider Holmes's habitual use of a pipe, or his less frequent use of cigarettes and cigars, a vice. Nor does Watson condemn Holmes's willingness to bend the truth or break the law on behalf of a client (e.g., lying to the police, concealing evidence or breaking into houses) when he feels it morally justifiable. Even so, it is obvious that Watson has stricter limits than Holmes, and occasionally berated Holmes for creating a "poisonous atmosphere" of tobacco smoke. Holmes himself references Watson's moderation in "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot", saying, "I think, Watson, that I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have so often and so justly condemned". Watson also did not condone Holmes's plans when they manipulated innocent people, such as when he toyed with a young woman's heart in The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton although it was done with noble intentions to save many other young women from the clutches of the villainous Milverton.

Holmes is portrayed as a patriot acting on behalf of the government in matters of national security in a number of stories. He also carries out counter-intelligence work in ''His Last Bow'', set at the beginning of the First World War. As shooting practice, the detective adorned the wall of his Baker Street lodgings with "VR" (''Victoria Regina'') in bullet pocks made by his pistol.

Holmes has an ego that at times borders on arrogant, albeit with justification; he draws pleasure from baffling police inspectors with his superior deductions. He does not seek fame, however, and is usually content to allow the police to take public credit for his work. It's often only when Watson publishes his stories that Holmes's role in the case becomes apparent.

Holmes is pleased when he is recognised for having superior skills and responds to flattery, as Watson remarks, as a girl does to comments upon her beauty.

Holmes's demeanour is presented as dispassionate and cold. Yet when in the midst of an adventure, Holmes can sparkle with remarkable passion. He has a flair for showmanship and will prepare elaborate traps to capture and expose a culprit, often to impress Watson or one of the Scotland Yard inspectors.

Holmes is a loner and does not strive to make friends, although he values those that he has, and none higher than Watson. He attributes his solitary ways to his particular interests and his mopey disposition. In ''The Adventure of the'' Gloria Scott, he tells Watson that during two years at college, he made only one friend, Victor Trevor. Holmes says, "I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year;... my line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all". He is similarly described in ''A Study in Scarlet'' as difficult to draw out by young Stamford.

Holmes' emotional state/mental health has been a topic of analysis for decades. At their first meeting in ''A Study in Scarlet'', the detective warns Watson that he gets "in the dumps at times" and doesn't open his "mouth for days on end". Many readers and literary experts have suggested Holmes showed signs of manic depressive psychosis, with moments of intense enthusiasm coupled with instances of indolent self absorption. Other modern readers have speculated that Holmes may have Asperger's syndrome based on his intense attention to details, lack of interest in interpersonal relationships and tendency to speak in long monologues. The detective's isolation and near-gynophobic distrust of women is said to suggest the desire to escape; Holmes "biographer" William Baring-Gould and others, including Nicholas Meyer, author of ''the Seven Percent Solution'', have implied a severe family trauma (i.e., the murder of Holmes' mother) may be the root cause.

Personal hygiene

Holmes is described in ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' as having a "cat-like" love of personal cleanliness. This in no way appears to hinder his intensely practical pursuit of his profession, however, and appears in contrast with statements that, in the first Holmes story, ''A Study in Scarlet'', his hands are discoloured with acid stains and Holmes uses drops of his own blood to conduct experiments in chemistry and forensics.

Use of drugs

Holmes occasionally uses addictive drugs, especially when lacking stimulating cases. He believes the use of cocaine stimulates his brain when it is not in use. He is a habitual user of cocaine, which he injects in a seven-per-cent solution using a special syringe that he keeps in a leather case. Holmes is also an occasional user of morphine but expressed strong disapproval on visiting an opium den. The 2002 movie ''Sherlock: Case of Evil'' depicts him using heroin, though that never appears in the original stories. All these drugs were legal in late 19th-century England. Both Watson and Holmes are serial tobacco users, including cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. Holmes is expert at identifying tobacco-ash residues, having penned a monograph on the subject.

Dr. Watson strongly disapproves of his friend's cocaine habit, describing it as the detective's "only vice" and expressing concern over its possible effect on Holmes's mental health and superior intellect. In later stories, Watson claims to have "weaned" Holmes off drugs. Even so, according to his doctor friend, Holmes remains an addict whose habit is "not dead, but merely sleeping".

Financial affairs

Although he initially needed Watson to share the rent of his comfortable residence at 221B Baker Street, Watson reveals in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective", when Holmes was living alone, that "I have no doubt that the house might have been purchased at the price which Holmes paid for his rooms," suggesting he had developed a good income from his practice, although it is seldom revealed exactly how much he charges for his services. In "A Scandal in Bohemia", he is paid the staggering sum of one thousand pounds (300 in gold and 700 in notes) as advance payment for "present expenses". In "The Problem of Thor Bridge" he avers: "My professional charges are upon a fixed scale. I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether".

This is said in a context where a client is offering to double his fees; however, it is likely that rich clients provided Holmes a remuneration greatly in excess of his standard fee. For example, in "The Adventure of the Final Problem", Holmes states that his services to the government of France and the royal house of Scandinavia had left him with enough money to retire comfortably, while in "The Adventure of Black Peter", Watson notes that Holmes would refuse to help the wealthy and powerful if their cases did not interest him, while he could devote weeks at a time to the cases of the most humble clients. Holmes also tells Watson, in "A Case of Identity", of a golden snuff box received from the King of Bohemia after "A Scandal in Bohemia" and a fabulous ring from the Dutch royal family; in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans", Holmes receives an emerald tie-pin from Queen Victoria. Other mementos of Holmes's cases are a gold sovereign from Irene Adler ("A Scandal in Bohemia") and an autographed letter of thanks from the French President and a Legion of Honour for tracking down an assassin named Huret ("The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez"). In "The Adventure of the Priory School", Holmes "rubs his hands with glee" when the Duke of Holdernesse notes the 5000 pound sterling sum, which surprises even Watson, and then pats the cheque, saying, "I am a poor man", an incident that could be dismissed as representative of Holmes's tendency toward sarcastic humour. Certainly, in the course of his career Holmes had worked for both the most powerful monarchs and governments of Europe (including his own) and various wealthy aristocrats and industrialists and had also been consulted by impoverished pawnbrokers and humble governesses on the lower rungs of society.

Holmes has been known to charge clients for his expenses, and to claim any reward that might be offered for the problem's solution: he says in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" that Miss Stoner may pay any expenses he may be put to, and requests that the bank in "The Red-Headed League" remunerate him for the money he spent solving the case. Holmes has his wealthy banker client in "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet" pay him for the costs of recovering the stolen gems and also claims the reward the banker had put for their recovery.

Relationships with women

The only woman to impress Holmes was Irene Adler, who according to Watson was always referred to by Holmes as "''the'' woman". Holmes himself is never directly quoted as using this term and even mentions her name in other cases. Adler is one of the few women who are mentioned in multiple Holmes stories, appearing in person in only one, "A Scandal in Bohemia".

In one story, "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton," Holmes is engaged to be married, but only to gain information for his case. Although Holmes appears to show initial interest in some of his female clients (in particular, Violet Hunter in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"), Watson says he inevitably "manifested no further interest in the client when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems". Holmes finds their youth, beauty, and energy (and the cases they bring to him) invigorating, distinct from any romantic interest. These episodes show Holmes possesses a degree of charm; yet apart from the case of Adler, there is no indication of a serious or long-term interest. Watson states that Holmes has an "aversion to women" but "a peculiarly ingratiating way with [them]". Holmes states, "I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind"; in fact, he finds "the motives of women... so inscrutable.... How can you build on such quicksand? Their most trivial actions may mean volumes;... their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin".

As Doyle remarked to muse Joseph Bell, "Holmes is as inhuman as a Babbage's calculating machine and just about as likely to fall in love". The only joy Holmes derives from the company of women is the problems they bring to him to solve. In ''The Sign of the Four'', Watson quotes Holmes as being "an automaton, a calculating machine", and Holmes is quoted as saying, "It is of the first importance not to allow your judgement to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit—a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money". This points to Holmes's lack of interest in relationships with women in general, and clients in particular, leading Watson to remark that "there is something positively inhuman in you at times". At the end of "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot", Holmes states: "I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act as our lawless lion-hunter had done". In the story, the explorer Dr Sterndale had killed the man who murdered his beloved, Brenda Tregennis, to exact a revenge which the law could not provide. Watson writes in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective" that Mrs. Hudson is fond of Holmes in her own way, despite his bothersome eccentricities as a lodger, owing to his "remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women". Again in ''The Sign of the Four'', Watson quotes Holmes as saying, "I would not tell them too much. Women are never to be entirely trusted—not the best of them". Watson notes that while he dislikes and distrusts them, he is nonetheless a "chivalrous opponent".

Methods of detection

Holmesian deduction

Holmes's primary intellectual detection method is induction, which Holmes rather inaccurately calls deduction. "From a drop of water", he writes, "a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other". Holmes stories often begin with a bravura display of his talent for "deduction". It is of some interest to logicians and those interested in logic to try to analyse just what Holmes is doing when he performs his induction. "Holmesian deduction" appears to consist primarily of drawing inferences based on either straightforward practical principles—which are the result of careful inductive study, such as Holmes's study of different kinds of cigar ashes or inference to the best explanation. One quote often heard from Holmes is "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".

Sherlock Holmes's straightforward practical principles are generally of the form, "If 'p', then 'q'," where 'p' is observed evidence and 'q' is what the evidence indicates. But there are also, as may be observed in the following example, intermediate principles. In "A Scandal in Bohemia" Holmes deduces that Watson had got very wet lately and that he had "a most clumsy and careless servant girl". When Watson, in amazement, asks how Holmes knows this, Holmes answers:

In this case, Holmes employed several connected principles:

If leather on the side of a shoe is scored by several parallel cuts, it was caused by someone who scraped around the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud.

If a London doctor's shoes are scraped to remove crusted mud, the person who so scraped them is the doctor's servant girl.

If someone cuts a shoe while scraping it to remove encrusted mud, that person is clumsy and careless.

If someone's shoes had encrusted mud on them, then they are likely to have been worn by him in the rain, when it is likely he became very wet.

By applying such principles in an obvious way (using repeated applications of ''modus ponens''), Holmes is able to infer from his observation that "the sides of Watson's shoes are scored by several parallel cuts" that:

"Watson's servant girl is clumsy and careless" and "Watson has been very wet lately and has been out in vile weather".

Deductive reasoning allows Holmes to impressively reveal a stranger's occupation, such as a Retired Sergeant of Marines in ''A Study in Scarlet''; a former ship's carpenter turned pawnbroker in "The Red-Headed League"; and a billiard-marker and a retired artillery NCO in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter". Similarly, by studying inanimate objects, Holmes is able to make astonishingly detailed deductions about their owners, including Watson's pocket-watch in "The Sign of the Four" as well as a hat, a pipe, and a walking stick in other stories.

Yet Doyle is careful not to present Holmes as infallible—a central theme in "The Adventure of the Yellow Face". At the end of the tale a sobered Holmes tells Watson, “If it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper ‘Norbury’ in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you”.

Disguise

Holmes displays a strong aptitude for acting and disguise. In several stories, he adopts disguises to gather evidence while 'under cover' so convincing that even Watson fails to penetrate them, such as in "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", "The Man with the Twisted Lip", "The Adventure of the Empty House" and "A Scandal in Bohemia". In other adventures, Holmes feigns being wounded or ill to give effect to his case, or to incriminate those involved, as in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective".

Weapons and martial arts

;Pistols :Holmes and Watson carry pistols with them; in the case of Watson often his old service revolver. Watson describes these weapons as being used on seven occasions.

;Cane :Holmes, as a gentleman, often carries a stick or cane. He is described by Watson as an expert at singlestick and twice uses his cane as a weapon.

;Sword :In "A Study in Scarlet" Watson describes Holmes as an expert with a sword—although none of the stories have Holmes using a sword. It is mentioned in "Gloria Scott" that Holmes practised fencing.

;Riding crop :In several stories, Holmes appears equipped with a riding crop and in "A Case of Identity" comes close to thrashing a swindler with it. Using a "hunting crop", Holmes knocks a pistol from John Clay's hand in "The Red-Headed League". In "The Six Napoleons" it is described as his favourite weapon—he uses it to break open one of the plaster busts.

;Fist-fighting :Holmes is described as a formidable bare-knuckle fighter. In ''The Sign of the Four'', Holmes introduces himself to a prize-fighter as:

:Holmes engages in hand-to-hand combat with his adversaries on occasions throughout the stories, inevitably emerging the victor. It is mentioned also in "Gloria Scott" that Holmes trained as a boxer.

;Martial arts :In "The Adventure of the Empty House", Holmes recounts to Watson how he used martial arts to overcome Professor Moriarty and fling his adversary to his death down the Reichenbach Falls. He states, "I have some knowledge, however, of ''baritsu,'' or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me". The name "baritsu" appears to be a reference to the real-life martial art of Bartitsu, which combined jujitsu with Holmes' canonical skills of boxing and cane fencing.

Knowledge and skills

In the first story, ''A Study in Scarlet'', something of Holmes's background is given. In early 1881, he is presented as an independent student of chemistry with a variety of very curious side interests, almost all of which turn out to be single-mindedly bent towards making him superior at solving crimes. (When he appears for the first time, he is crowing with delight at having invented a new method for detecting bloodstains; in other stories he indulges in recreational home-chemistry experiments, sometimes filling the rooms with foul-smelling vapours.) An early story, "The Adventure of the ''Gloria Scott''", presents more background on what influenced Holmes to become a detective: a college friend's father richly complimented his deductive skills. Holmes maintains strict adherence to scientific methods and focuses on logic and the powers of observation and deduction.

Holmes also makes use of phrenology, which was widely popular in Victorian times but now regarded as pseudo-scientific: In "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", he infers from the large size of a man's hat that the owner is intelligent and intellectually inclined, on the grounds that “a man with so large a brain must have something in it”.

In ''A Study in Scarlet'', Holmes claims he does not know that the Earth revolves around the Sun, as such information is irrelevant to his work. Directly after having heard that fact from Watson, he says he will immediately try to forget it. He says he believes that the mind has a finite capacity for information storage, and so learning useless things would merely reduce his ability to learn useful things. Dr. Watson subsequently assesses Holmes's abilities thus:

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Knowledge of Literature – nil.

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Knowledge of Philosophy – nil.

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Knowledge of Astronomy – nil.

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Knowledge of Politics – Feeble.

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Knowledge of Botany – Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.

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Knowledge of Geology – Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks, has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.

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Knowledge of Chemistry – Profound.

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Knowledge of Anatomy – Accurate, but unsystematic.

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Knowledge of Sensational Literature – Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.

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Plays the violin well.

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Is an expert singlestick player, boxer and swordsman.

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Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ''A Study in Scarlet''

At the very end of ''A Study in Scarlet'' itself, it is shown that Holmes knows Latin and needs no translation of Roman epigrams in the original—though knowledge of the language would be of dubious direct utility for detective work; all university students were required to learn Latin at that time.

Later stories also contradict the list. Despite Holmes's supposed ignorance of politics, in "A Scandal in Bohemia" he immediately recognises the true identity of the supposed "Count von Kramm". Regarding nonsensational literature, his speech is replete with references to the Bible, Shakespeare, even Goethe. He is able to quote from a letter of Flaubert to George Sand and in the original French.

Moreover, in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" Watson reports that in November 1895 "Holmes lost himself in a monograph which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus"—a most esoteric field, for which Holmes would have had to "clutter his memory" with an enormous amount of information which had absolutely nothing to do with crime-fighting—knowledge so extensive that his monograph was regarded as "the last word" on the subject. The later stories abandon the notion that Holmes did not want to know anything unless it had immediate relevance for his profession; in the second chapter of ''The Valley of Fear'', Holmes instead declares that "all knowledge comes useful to the detective", and near the end of "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" he describes himself as "an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles".

Holmes is also a competent cryptanalyst. He relates to Watson, "I am fairly familiar with all forms of secret writing, and am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I analyse one hundred and sixty separate ciphers". One such scheme is solved using frequency analysis in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men".

Holmes's analysis of physical evidence is both scientific and precise. His methods include the use of latent prints such as footprints, hoof prints and bicycle tracks to identify actions at a crime scene (''A Study in Scarlet'', "The Adventure of Silver Blaze", "The Adventure of the Priory School", ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'', "The Boscombe Valley Mystery"), the use of tobacco ashes and cigarette butts to identify criminals ("The Adventure of the Resident Patient", ''The Hound of the Baskervilles''), the comparison of typewritten letters to expose a fraud ("A Case of Identity"), the use of gunpowder residue to expose two murderers ("The Adventure of the Reigate Squire"), bullet comparison from two crime scenes ("The Adventure of the Empty House"), analysis of small pieces of human remains to expose two murders (''The Adventure of the Cardboard Box'') and even an early use of fingerprints ("The Norwood Builder"). Holmes also demonstrates knowledge of psychology in "A Scandal in Bohemia", luring Irene Adler into betraying where she had hidden a photograph based on the "premise" that an unmarried woman will seek her most valuable possession in case of fire, whereas a married woman will grab her baby instead.

Despite the excitement of his life (or perhaps seeking to leave it behind), Holmes retired to the Sussex Downs to take up beekeeping ("The Second Stain") and wrote a book on the subject entitled "Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen". His search for relaxation can also be seen in his love for music, notably in "The Red-Headed League", wherein Holmes takes an evening off from a case to listen to Pablo de Sarasate play violin.

He also enjoys vocal music, particularly Wagner ("The Adventure of the Red Circle").

The film ''Young Sherlock Holmes'' (1985), which speculates about Holmes's youthful adventures, shows Holmes as a brilliant secondary school student, being mentored simultaneously by an eccentric professor/inventor and his dedicated fencing instructor.

Influence

Forensic science

Sherlock Holmes remains a great inspiration for forensic science, especially for the way his acute study of a crime scene yields small clues as to the precise sequence of events. He makes great use of trace evidence such as shoe and tire impressions, as well as fingerprints, ballistics and handwriting analysis, now known as questioned document examination. Such evidence is used to test theories conceived by the police, for example, or by the investigator himself. All of the techniques advocated by Holmes later became reality, but were generally in their infancy at the time Conan Doyle was writing. In many of his reported cases, Holmes frequently complains of the way the crime scene has been contaminated by others, especially by the police, emphasising the critical importance of maintaining its integrity, a now well-known feature of crime scene examination.

Owing to the small scale of the trace evidence (such as tobacco ash, hair or fingerprints), he often uses a magnifying glass at the scene, and an optical microscope back at his lodgings in Baker Street. He uses analytical chemistry for blood residue analysis as well as toxicology examination and determination for poisons. Holmes seems to have maintained a small chemistry laboratory in his lodgings, presumably using simple wet chemical methods for detection of specific toxins, for example. Ballistics is used when spent bullets can be recovered, and their calibre measured and matched with a suspect murder weapon.

Holmes was also very perceptive of the dress and attitude of his clients and suspects, noting style and state of wear of their clothes, any contamination (such as clay on boots), their state of mind and physical condition in order to infer their origin and recent history. Skin marks such as tattoos could reveal much about their past history. He applied the same method to personal items such as walking sticks (famously in ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'') or hats (in the case of The Blue Carbuncle), with small details such as medallions, wear and contamination yielding vital indicators of their absent owners.

An omission from the stories is the use of forensic photography. Even before Holmes' time, high quality photography was used to record accident scenes, as in the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879, murders in 1888.

In 2002, the Royal Society of Chemistry bestowed an honorary fellowship of their organisation upon Sherlock Holmes, for his use of forensic science and analytical chemistry in popular literature, making him the only (as of 2010) fictional character to be thus honoured.

Role in the history of the detective story

Although Sherlock Holmes is not the original fiction detective (he was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin and Émile Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq), his name has become a byword for the part. His stories also include several detective story characters such as the loyal but less intelligent assistant, a role for which Dr Watson has become the archetype. The investigating detective became a popular genre with many authors such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers after the demise of Holmes, with characters such as Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey. Forensic methods became less important than the psychology of the criminal, despite the strong growth in forensics in use by the police in the early 20th century.

Scientific literature

Sherlock Holmes has occasionally been used in the scientific literature. John Radford (1999) speculates on his intelligence. Using Conan Doyle’s stories as data, Radford applies three different methods to estimate Sherlock Holmes’s IQ, and concludes that his intelligence was very high indeed, estimated at approximately 190 points. Snyder (2004) examines Holmes’ methods in the light of the science and the criminology of the mid to late 19th century. Kempster (2006) compares neurologists’ skills with those displayed by Holmes. Finally, Didierjean and Gobet (2008) review the literature on the psychology of expertise by taking as model a fictional expert: Sherlock Holmes. They highlight aspects of Doyle’s books that are in line with what is currently known about expertise, aspects that are implausible, and aspects that suggest further research.

Legacy

Fan speculation

The fifty-six short stories and four novels written by Conan Doyle are termed the "canon" by Sherlock Holmes fans. Early scholars of the canon included Ronald Knox in Britain and Christopher Morley in New York, the latter having founded the Baker Street Irregulars, the first society devoted exclusively to the canon of Holmes, in 1934.

Writers have produced many pop culture references to Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle, or characters from the stories in homage, to a greater or lesser degree. Such allusions can form a plot development, raise the intellectual level of the piece, or act as Easter eggs for an observant audience.

Some have been overt, introducing Holmes as a character in a new setting, or a more subtle allusion, such as making a logical character live in an apartment at number 221B. One well-known example of this is the character Gregory House on the show ''House M.D'', whose name and apartment number are both references to Holmes. Often the simplest reference is to dress anybody who does some kind of detective work in a deerstalker and cape.

However, throughout the entire novel series, Holmes is never explicitly described as wearing a "deerstalker hat". Holmes dons "his ear-flapped travelling cap" in "The Adventure of Silver Blaze". Sidney Paget first drew Holmes wearing the deerstalker cap and Inverness cape in "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" and subsequently in several other stories.

"Elementary, my dear Watson"

A third major reference is the oft-quoted but non-canonical catchphrase: "Elementary, my dear Watson". This phrase is never actually uttered by Holmes in any of the sixty Holmes stories written by Conan Doyle. In the stories, Holmes often remarks that his logical conclusions are "elementary", in that he considers them to be simple and obvious. He also, on occasion, refers to Dr. Watson as "my dear Watson". The two fragments, however, never appear together. One of the closest examples to this phrase appears in "The Adventure of the Crooked Man", when Holmes explains a deduction:

The first known use of this phrase was in the 1915 novel, ''Psmith Journalist'', by P. G. Wodehouse. It also appears at the very end of the 1929 film, ''The Return of Sherlock Holmes'', the first Sherlock Holmes sound film. William Gillette, who played Holmes on stage and radio, had previously used the similar phrase, ''Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow''. The phrase might owe its household familiarity to its use in Edith Meiser's scripts for ''The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' radio series, broadcast from 1939 to 1947.

The Great Hiatus

Holmes aficionados refer to the period from 1891 to 1894—the time between Holmes's disappearance and presumed death in "The Adventure of the Final Problem" and his reappearance in "The Adventure of the Empty House"—as "the Great Hiatus". It is notable, though, that one later story ("The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge") is described as taking place in 1892.

Conan Doyle wrote the first set of stories over the course of a decade. Wanting to devote more time to his historical novels, he killed off Holmes in "The Final Problem," which appeared in print in 1893. After resisting public pressure for eight years, the author wrote ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'', which appeared in 1901, implicitly setting it before Holmes's "death" (some theorise that it actually took place after "The Return" but with Watson planting clues to an earlier date). The public, while pleased with the story, was not satisfied with a posthumous Holmes, and so Conan Doyle revived Holmes two years later. Many have speculated on his motives for bringing Holmes back to life, notably writer-director Nicholas Meyer, who wrote an essay on the subject in the 1970s entitled "The Great Man Takes a Walk". The actual reasons are not known, other than the obvious: publishers offered to pay generously. For whatever reason, Conan Doyle continued to write Holmes stories for a quarter-century longer.

Some writers have come up with other explanations for the hiatus. In Meyer's novel ''The Seven-Per-Cent Solution'', the hiatus is depicted as a secret sabbatical following Holmes's treatment for cocaine addiction at the hands of Sigmund Freud, and presents Holmes making the light-hearted suggestion that Watson write a fictitious account claiming he had been killed by Moriarty, saying of the public: "They'll never believe you in any case".

In his memoirs, Conan Doyle quotes a reader, who judged the later stories inferior to the earlier ones, to the effect that when Holmes went over the Reichenbach Falls, he may not have been killed, but was never quite the same man. The differences in the pre- and post-Hiatus Holmes have in fact created speculation among those who play "The Great Game" (making believe Sherlock Holmes was a historical person). Among the more fanciful theories, the story "The Case of the Detective's Smile" by Mark Bourne, published in the anthology ''Sherlock Holmes in Orbit'', posits that one of the places Holmes visited during his hiatus was Alice's Wonderland. While there, he solved the case of the stolen tarts, and his experiences there contributed to his kicking the cocaine addiction.

Societies

In 1934, the Sherlock Holmes Society, in London, and the Baker Street Irregulars, in New York were founded. Both are still active (though the Sherlock Holmes Society was dissolved in 1937 to be resuscitated only in 1951). The London-based society is one of many worldwide who arrange visits to the scenes of the Sherlock Holmes adventures, such as the Reichenbach Falls in the Swiss Alps.

The two initial societies founded in 1934 were followed by many more Holmesians circles, first of all in America (where they are called "scion societies"—offshoots—of the Baker Street Irregulars), then in England and Denmark. Nowadays, there are Sherlockian societies in many countries, such as India and Japan.

Museums

During the 1951 Festival of Britain, Sherlock Holmes's sitting-room was reconstructed as the masterpiece of a Sherlock Holmes Exhibition, displaying a unique collection of original material. After the 1951 exhibition closed, items were transferred to the Sherlock Holmes Pub, in London, and to the Conan Doyle Collection in Lucens (Switzerland). Both exhibitions, each including its own Baker Street Sitting-Room reconstruction, are still open to the public. In 1990, the Sherlock Holmes Museum opened in Baker Street London and the following year in Meiringen, Switzerland another museum opened; naturally, they include less historical material about Conan Doyle than about Sherlock Holmes himself. The Sherlock Holmes Museum in Baker Street, London was the first Museum in the world to be dedicated to a fictional character. A private collection of Conan Doyle is also housed in the Portsmouth City Museum which has a permanent exhibit, due to his importance in the city where he lived and worked for many years.

Adaptations and derived works

The enduring popularity of Sherlock Holmes has led to hundreds of works based on the character – both adaptations into other media and original stories. The copyright in all of Conan Doyle's works expired in the United Kingdom in 2000 (1980 in Canada and Australasia) and they are therefore in the public domain throughout most of the world (where the expiry term is 50 or 70 years following the year of death). All works published in the United States prior to 1923 are in the public domain; this includes all Sherlock Holmes stories with the exception of some of the stories contained within The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. For works published after 1923 but before 1963, if the copyright was registered, its term lasts for 95 years. The Conan Doyle heirs registered the copyright to ''The Case Book'' (published in the USA after 1923) in 1981.

Stage and screen adaptations

The ''Guinness World Records'' has consistently listed Sherlock Holmes as the "most portrayed movie character" with 75 actors playing the part in over 211 films. Holmes' first screen appearance was in the Mutoscope film ''Sherlock Holmes Baffled'' in 1900, albeit in a barely-recognisable form.

William Gillette’s 1899 play ''Sherlock Holmes, or The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner'' was a synthesis of several stories by Doyle, mostly based on ''A Scandal in Bohemia'' adding love interest, with the Holmes-Moriarty exchange from ''The Final Problem'', as well as elements from ''The Copper Beeches'' and ''A Study in Scarlet''. By 1916, Harry Arthur Saintsbury had played Holmes on stage more than a thousand times. This play formed the basis for Gillette's 1916 motion picture, ''Sherlock Holmes''.

In a 1924 comedy film "Sherlock Jr." Buster Keaton's character longs to be a detective.

Basil Rathbone starred as Sherlock Holmes, alongside Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson, in fourteen US films (two for 20th Century Fox and a dozen for Universal Pictures) from 1939 to 1946, as well as a number of radio plays. It is these films that produced the iconic though noncanonical line, "Elementary, my dear Watson".

Ronald Howard starred in 39 episodes of the ''Sherlock Holmes'' 1954 American TV series with Howard Marion Crawford as Watson. The storylines deviated from the books of Conan Doyle, changing characters and other details.

Fritz Weaver appeared as Sherlock Holmes in the musical ''Baker Street'', which ran on Broadway between 16 February and 14 November 1965. Peter Sallis portrayed Dr. Watson, Inga Swenson appeared as The Woman, Irene Adler, and Martin Gabel played Moriarty. Virginia Vestoff, Tommy Tune, and Christopher Walken were also members of the original cast.

In ''The Return Of Sherlock Holmes'', a TV-Movie aired in 1987, Margaret Colin stars as Dr. Watson's great-granddaughter Jane Watson, a Boston private eye, who stumbles upon Sherlock Holmes' (played by Michael Pennington) body in frozen suspension and restores the Victorian sleuth to life in the 1980s. The film was intended as a pilot for a TV series which never materialised. A similar plot line was used in ''Sherlock Holmes Returns: 1994 Baker Street'' where Dr Amy Winslow (played by Debrah Farentino) discovers Sherlock Holmes frozen in the cellar of house in San Francisco owned by a descendant of Mrs Hudson. Holmes (played by Anthony Higgins) froze himself in the hopes that crimes in the future would be less dull. He discovers that consulting detectives have been replaced by the police department's forensic science lab and that the Moriarty family are still the Napoleon's of crime.

Two episodes of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' feature Sherlock Holmes. In episode No. 29 ("Elementary, Dear Data") the character of Data, played by Brent Spiner, pretends he is Sherlock to Geordi's Dr. Watson in a holodeck experience. In episode No. 138 ("Ship in a Bottle") archvillain Dr. Moriarty seems to escape from the holodeck into the Enterprise proper.

Jeremy Brett is generally considered the definitive Holmes, having played the role in four series of ''Sherlock Holmes'', created by John Hawkesworth for Britain's Granada Television, from 1984 through to 1994, as well as depicting Holmes on stage. Brett's Dr Watson was played by David Burke (pre-hiatus) and Edward Hardwicke (post-hiatus) in the series. Jeremy Brett wished to be the best Sherlock Holmes the world had ever seen and conducted extensive research into the character and the author that created him. He strove to bring passion and life to the role and in his obituary it was said, "Mr. Brett was regarded as the quintessential Holmes: breathtakingly analytical, given to outrageous disguises and the blackest moods and relentless in his enthusiasm for solving the most intricate crimes."

Nicol Williamson portrayed Holmes in ''The Seven-Per-Cent Solution'' with Robert Duvall playing Watson and featuring Alan Arkin as Sigmund Freud. The 1976 adaption was written by Nicholas Meyer from his 1974 book of the same name, and directed by Herbert Ross.

Between 1979 and 1986, Soviet television broadcast a series of five made-for-TV films in a total of eleven parts, ''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson'', starring Vasily Livanov as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Watson. Livanov's portrayal of Holmes is widely considered canonical. Holmes museum in London, Baker St., 221B, has the portrait of Livanov depicting Holmes himself.

In 2002 made-for-television movie ''Sherlock: Case of Evil'', James D'Arcy starred as Holmes in his 20s. The story noticeably departs from the style and backstory of the canon and D'Arcy's portrayal of Holmes is slightly different from prior incarnations of the character, psychologically disturbed, an absinthe addicted, a heavy drinker and a ladies' man.

The Fox television series ''House'' contains numerous similarities and references to Holmes. Show creator David Shore has acknowledged this "subtle homage".

In the 2009 film ''Sherlock Holmes'', based on a story by Lionel Wigram and images by John Watkiss, directed by Guy Ritchie, the role of Holmes is performed by Robert Downey, Jr. with Jude Law portraying Watson. It is a reinterpretation which heavily focuses on Holmes's more anti-social personality traits as an unkempt eccentric with a brilliant analytical mind and formidable martial abilities, making this the most cynical incarnation of Holmes. However, with the exception of missing Holmes's 'catlike love of personal cleanliness', many critics have lauded the film as one of the most faithful to Doyle's canon. Robert Downey Jr. won the Golden Globe Award for his portrayal. Downey Jr. will return in the 2011 sequel ''Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows''.

Independent film company The Asylum released the direct-to-DVD film ''Sherlock Holmes'' in January 2010. In the film, Holmes and Watson battle a criminal mastermind dubbed "Spring-Heeled Jack", who controls several mechanical creatures to commit crimes across London. Holmes (Ben Syder) is portrayed as considerably younger than most actors who have played him, and his disapproval of Scotland Yard is undertoned, though things like his drug additction remain mostly unchanged. The film features a brother of Holmes's called Thorpe, who was invented by the producers of the film out of creative liberty. His companion Watson is played by ''Torchwood'' actor Gareth David-Lloyd.

In March 2010 Youtuber "Ross K" (Ross K Foad) created No Place Like Holmes, a web drama comedy show based on Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. It is considered to be the only ongoing Sherlock Holmes web show. It focuses on the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson following an encounter with a malicious demonic Sir Hugo Baskerville, who freezes them in a time spell only for them to eventually re-emerge in the present day. Unlike the BBC Sherlock, this Holmes does not embrace technology or modern-day devices and remains the Victorian gentleman he has always been, dressing the same and holding the same values he did over 100 years ago. There is also a spin-off which takes place in 1891–1894 covering the Great Hiatus years where Sherlock is still on the run from Moriarty's right-hand men following the events of the Final Problem.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays a modern-day version of the detective in the BBC One TV series ''Sherlock'', which premiered on 25 July 2010. The series changes the books' original Victorian setting to the shady and violent present-day London. The show was created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, best-known as writers for the BBC television series ''Doctor Who''. Says Moffat, "Conan Doyle's stories were never about frock coats and gas light; they're about brilliant detection, dreadful villains and blood-curdling crimes – and frankly, to hell with the crinoline. Other detectives have cases, Sherlock Holmes has adventures, and that's what matters."

Cumberbatch's Holmes was described by the BBC as

brilliant, aloof and almost entirely lacking in social graces. Sherlock is a unique young man with a mind like a 'racing engine'. Without problems to solve, it will tear itself to pieces. And the more bizarre and baffling the problems the better. He has set himself up as the world's only consulting detective, whom the police grudgingly accept as their superior.

He also uses modern technology, such as texting and internet blogging, to solve the crimes, and in a nod towards changing social attitudes and broadcasting regulations, he has replaced his pipe with multiple nicotine patches.

Related and derivative works

In addition to the Sherlock Holmes corpus, Conan Doyle's "The Lost Special" (1898) features an unnamed "amateur reasoner" clearly intended to be identified as Holmes by his readers. His explanation for a baffling disappearance, argued in Holmes's characteristic style, turns out to be quite wrong—evidently Conan Doyle was not above poking fun at his own hero. A short story by Conan Doyle using the same idea is "The Man with the Watches". Another example of Conan Doyle's humour is "How Watson Learned the Trick" (1924), a parody of the frequent Watson-Holmes breakfast table scenes. A further (and earlier) parody by Conan Doyle is "The Field Bazaar". He also wrote other material, especially plays, featuring Holmes. Many of these are collected in ''Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha'' edited by Jack Tracy, ''The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' edited by Peter Haining and ''The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes'' compiled by Richard Lancelyn Green.

In 1907, Sherlock Holmes began featuring in a series of German booklets. Among the writers was Theo van Blankensee. Watson had been replaced by a 19 year old assistant from the street, among his ''Baker Street Irregulars'', with the name Harry Taxon, and Mrs. Hudson had been replaced by one Mrs. Bonnet. From number 10 the series changed its name to "Aus den Geheimakten des Welt-Detektivs". The French edition changed its name from "Les Dossiers Secrets de Sherlock Holmes" to "Les Dossiers du Roi des Detectives".

Sherlock Holmes's abilities as both a good fighter and as an excellent logician have been a boon to other authors who have lifted his name, or details of his exploits, for their plots. These range from Holmes as a cocaine addict, whose drug-fuelled fantasies lead him to cast an innocent Professor Moriarty as a super villain (''The Seven-Per-Cent Solution''), to science-fiction plots involving him being re-animated after death to fight crime in the future (''Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century'').

Some authors have supplied stories to fit the tantalising references in the canon to unpublished cases (e.g. "The giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared" in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire"), notably ''The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes'' by Conan Doyle's son Adrian Conan Doyle with John Dickson Carr, and ''The Lost Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' by Ken Greenwald, based rather closely on episodes of the 1945 Sherlock Holmes radio show that starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce and for which scripts were written by Dennis Green and Anthony Boucher. Others have used different characters from the stories as their own detective, e.g. Mycroft Holmes in ''Enter the Lion'' by Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright (1979) or Dr James Mortimer (from ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'') in books by Gerard Williams.

Laurie R. King recreates Sherlock Holmes in her Mary Russell series (starting with ''The Beekeeper's Apprentice''), set during the First World War and the 1920s. Her Holmes is (semi)retired in Sussex, where he is literally stumbled over by a teenage American girl. Recognising a kindred spirit, he gradually trains her as his apprentice. As of 2009 the series includes nine novels and a novella tie-in with a book from King's present-time Kate Martinelli series, ''The Art of Detection''.

Carole Nelson Douglas' series, the Irene Adler Adventures, is based on the character from Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia". The first book, ''Good Night, Mr. Holmes'', retells that tale from Irene's point of view. The series is narrated by Adler's companion, Penelope Huxleigh, in a role similar to that of Dr. Watson.

The film ''They Might Be Giants'' is a 1971 romantic comedy based on the 1961 play of the same name (both written by James Goldman) in which the character Justin Playfair, played by George C. Scott, is convinced he is Sherlock Holmes, and manages to convince many others of same, including the psychiatrist Dr. Watson, played by Joanne Woodward, who is assigned to evaluate him so he can be committed to a mental institution.

The film ''Young Sherlock Holmes'' (1985) explores adventures of Holmes and Watson as boarding school pupils.

The Japanese anime series "Detective Conan", also called "Case Closed" in English, is an homage to Doyle's work. The 2002 film ''The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire'' is loosely based on Doyle's story "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire".

In the 1980s Ben Kingsley played Dr. Watson in ''Without a Clue''. Dr. Watson hired an actor to be Sherlock Holmes (Michael Caine) because the cases he has been writing about are his own. Moriarty is said to know that Sherlock Holmes is an idiot.

The novel ''A Dog About Town'' by J. F. Englert makes reference to Sherlock Holmes, comparing the black Labrador retriever narrator, Randolph, to Doyle's detective as well as naming a fictitious spirit guide after him.

''The Final Solution'' is a 2004 novel by Michael Chabon. The story, set in 1944, revolves around an 89-year-old long-retired detective who may or may not be Sherlock Holmes but is always called just "the old man", now interested mostly in beekeeping, and his quest to find a missing parrot, the only friend of a mute Jewish boy. The title references both Doyle's story "The Final Problem" and the Final Solution, the Nazis' plan for the genocide of the Jewish people.

In 2006, a southern California "vaudeville-nouveau" group known as Sound & Fury began performing a theatre in the round parody show entitled "Sherlock Holmes & The Saline Solution" which depicts Holmes as a bumbling figure guided by a slightly less clueless Watson. The show ran in Los Angeles as well as the Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringe Festivals through 2009.

In a novella "The Prisoner of the Tower, or A Short But Beautiful Journey of Three Wise Men" by Boris Akunin published in 2008 in Russia as the conclusion of "Jade Rosary Beads" book, Sherlock Holmes and Erast Fandorin oppose Arsène Lupin on 31 December 1899.

In June 2010 it was announced that Franklin Watts books, a part of Hachette Children's Books are to release a series of four children's graphic novels by writer Tony Lee and artist Dan Boultwood in spring 2011 based around the Baker Street Irregulars during the three years that Sherlock Holmes was believed dead, between The Adventure of the Final Problem and The Adventure of the Empty House. Although not specifying whether Sherlock Holmes actually appears in the books, the early reports include appearances by Doctor Watson, Inspector Lestrade and Irene Adler.

On 17 January 2011, it was announced that the Conan Doyle estate had commissioned Anthony Horowitz, author of the Alex Rider novels, The Power of Five and TV's ''Foyle's War'', to write a brand new, authorised Sherlock Holmes novel to be published by Orion Books in September 2011. "The content of the new tale – and indeed the title – remain a closely guarded secret."

The original stories

The original Sherlock Holmes stories consist of fifty-six short stories and four novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Novels

''A Study in Scarlet'' (published 1887, in ''Beeton's Christmas Annual'')

''The Sign of the Four'' (published 1890, ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine'')

''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (serialised 1901–1902 in ''The Strand'')

''The Valley of Fear'' (serialised 1914–1915 in ''The Strand'')

Short stories

''For more detail see List of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short stories''.

The short stories, originally published in periodicals, were later gathered into five anthologies:

''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' (contains stories published 1891–1892 in ''The Strand'')

''The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes'' (contains stories published 1892–1893 in ''The Strand'' as further episodes of the ''Adventures'')

''The Return of Sherlock Holmes'' (contains stories published 1903–1904 in ''The Strand'')

''The Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes (including His Last Bow) '' (contains stories published 1908–1913 and 1917)

''The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes'' (contains stories published 1921–1927)

See also

"Holmes-ian" Detection:

*Forensic chemistry

*Forensic engineering

*HOLMES2 (police computer system)

List of people who have played Sherlock Holmes

List of Holmesian studies

Other Arthur Conan Doyle characters:

*Professor Challenger

''Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes

*Games:

*''Sherlock'' (1984) (Philip Mitchell) (PC text adventure)

*''221B Baker Street'' (1987) (Datasoft) (PC and Mac)

*''Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels'' (1988) (Infocom)

*''Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective'' (1991) (ICOM Simulations)

*''Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. II'' (1992) (ICOM Simulations)

*''Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. III'' (1993) (ICOM Simulations)

*''The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel'' (1992) (Electronic Arts) (PC)

*''The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo'' (1996) (Electronic Arts) (PC)

*''Sherlock Holmes'' series: (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes: Mystery of the Mummy'' (2002) (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes: Secret of the Silver Earring'' (2004) (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened'' (2006) (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes versus Arsène Lupin'' (2007) (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Persian Carpet'' (Frogwares) (PC)

**''Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper'' (2009) (Frogwares) (PC)(X360)

References

Further reading

Fenoli Marc, Qui a tué Sherlock Holmes ? [Who shot Sherlock Holmes ?], Review L’Alpe 45, Glénat-Musée Dauphinois, Grenoble-France, 2009. ISBN 978-2-7234-6902-9

Lieboe, Eli. ''Doctor Joe Bell: Model for Sherlock Holmes''. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1982; Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-87972-198-5

External links

The Ocular Helmsman A Vade Mecum Upon the Personal Effects & Environs of Mssrs. Sherlock Holmes & John H. Watson of 221B Baker Street for the Victorian Layman (sic)

For the Heirs to Holmes, a Tangled Web

The Sherlock Holmes Museum 221b Baker Street, London England.

The Sherlock Holmes Society of London London society founded 1951

Sherlockian Major Sherlock Holmes reference with Original Stories, Pictures, articles and links to other holmesian websites.

Baker Street Dozen Sherlock Holmes in Books, Film and Media

Bert Coules' website (BBC Radio 4 canonical and original stories, 1989–2004)

Discovering Sherlock Holmes at Stanford University

Sherlock Holmes Special Collections

The Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota Special Collections and Rare Books

Edward Winter, Chess and Sherlock Holmes

Mostly-Victorian.com original Sherlock Holmes tales from ''The Strand''

Wall Street Journal on Sherlock Holmes

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Coordinates	00°59′13″N49°56′24″N
bgcolour	#FBEC5D
name	Vincent van Gogh
alt	A mid to late 30s man gazing to the left with an intense expression, wearing a winter hat and green coat, sitting in front of a Japanese print
birth name	Vincent Willem van Gogh
birth date	30 March 1853
birth place	Zundert, Netherlands
death date	July 29, 1890
death place	Auvers-sur-Oise, France
nationality	Dutch
field	Painting, drawing, printmaking
influenced by	Anton Mauve, Jean-François Millet, Jozef Israëls, Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli, Impressionism, Ukiyo-e
movement	Post-Impressionism
works	''At Eternity's Gate, The Potato Eaters, Bedroom in Arles, The Night Café, Sunflowers, Cafe Terrace at Night, The Starry Night, Irises, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, Wheatfield with Crows''
patron	Theo van Gogh
awards	}}

Vincent Willem van Gogh (, ; ; 30 March 1853 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died at the age of 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted. His work was then known to only a handful of people and appreciated by fewer still.

Van Gogh loved art from an early age. He began to draw as a child, and he continued making drawings throughout the years leading to his decision to become an artist. He did not begin painting until his late twenties, completing many of his best-known works during his last two years. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints. His work included self portraits, landscapes, still lifes of flowers, portraits and paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.

Van Gogh spent his early adulthood working for a firm of art dealers, traveling between The Hague, London and Paris, after which he taught for a time in England. One of his early aspirations was to become a pastor and from 1879 he worked as a missionary in a mining region in Belgium where he began to sketch people from the local community. In 1885, he painted his first major work ''The Potato Eaters''. His palette at the time consisted mainly of somber earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid coloration that distinguished his later work. In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. Later he moved to the south of France and was taken by the strong sunlight he found there. His work grew brighter in color, and he developed the unique and highly recognizable style that became fully realized during his stay in Arles in 1888.

The extent to which his mental health affected his painting has been a subject of speculation since his death. Despite a widespread tendency to romanticize his ill health, modern critics see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence brought about by his bouts of illness. According to art critic Robert Hughes, van Gogh's late works show an artist at the height of his ability, completely in control and "longing for concision and grace".

Letters

The most comprehensive primary source for the understanding of van Gogh as an artist is the collection of letters between him and his younger brother, art dealer Theo van Gogh. They lay the foundation for most of what is known about the thoughts and beliefs of the artist. Theo provided his brother with both financial and emotional support. Their lifelong friendship, and most of what is known of van Gogh's thoughts and theories of art, is recorded in the hundreds of letters they exchanged between 1872 and 1890: more than 600 from Vincent to Theo and 40 from Theo to Vincent.

Although many are undated, art historians have generally been able to put them in chronological order. Problems remain, mainly in dating those from Arles although it is known that during that period, van Gogh wrote 200 letters to friends in Dutch, French and English. The period when Vincent lived in Paris is the most difficult for historians to analyze because the brothers lived together and had no need to correspond.

In addition to letters to and from Theo, other surviving documents include those to Van Rappard, Émile Bernard, van Gogh's sister Wil and her friend Line Kruysse. The letters were first annotated in 1913 by Theo's widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger who explained that she published them with 'trepidation' because she did not want the drama in the artist's life to overshadow his work. Van Gogh himself was an avid reader of other artists' biographies and expected their lives to be in keeping with the character of their art.

Biography

Early life

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 in Groot-Zundert, a village close to Breda in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, a predominantly Catholic area. He was the oldest child of Theodorus van Gogh, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, and Anna Cornelia Carbentus. Vincent was given the name of his grandfather, and of a brother stillborn exactly a year before his birth. The practice of reusing a name was not unusual. Vincent was a common name in the Van Gogh family: his grandfather, Vincent (1789–1874), had received his degree of theology at the University of Leiden in 1811. Grandfather Vincent had six sons, three of whom became art dealers, including another Vincent who was referred to in van Gogh's letters as "Uncle Cent". Grandfather Vincent had perhaps been named in turn after his own father's uncle, the successful sculptor Vincent van Gogh (1729–1802). Art and religion were the two occupations to which the Van Gogh family gravitated. His brother Theodorus "Theo" was born on 1 May 1857. He had another brother, Cor, and three sisters: Elisabeth, Anna and Willemina "Wil".

As a child, Vincent was serious, silent and thoughtful. He attended the Zundert village school from 1860, where the single Catholic teacher taught around 200 pupils. From 1861, he and his sister Anna were taught at home by a governess, until 1 October 1864, when he went to Jan Provily's boarding school at Zevenbergen about away. He was distressed to leave his family home as he recalled later as an adult. On 15 September 1866, he went to the new middle school, Willem II College in Tilburg. Constantijn C. Huysmans, a successful artist in Paris, taught van Gogh to draw at the school and advocated a systematic approach to the subject. Vincent's interest in art began at an early age. He began to draw as a child and continued making drawings throughout the years leading to his decision to become an artist. Though well-done and expressive, his early drawings do not approach the intensity he developed in his later work. In March 1868, van Gogh abruptly left school and returned home. A later comment on his early years was in an 1883 letter to Theo in which he wrote, "My youth was gloomy and cold and sterile".

In July 1869, his uncle Cent helped him obtain a position with the art dealer Goupil & Cie in The Hague. After his training, in June 1873, Goupil transferred him to London, where he lodged at 87 Hackford Road, Brixton, and worked at Messrs. Goupil & Co., 17 Southampton Street. This was a happy time for Vincent; he was successful at work and was, at 20, earning more than his father. Theo's wife later remarked that this was the happiest year of Vincent's life. He fell in love with his landlady's daughter, Eugénie Loyer, but when he finally confessed his feelings to her, she rejected him, saying that she was secretly engaged to a former lodger. He became increasingly isolated and fervent about religion; his father and uncle arranged for him to be transferred to Paris, where he became resentful at how art was treated as a commodity, a fact apparent to customers. On 1 April 1876, Goupil terminated his employment.

Van Gogh returned to England for unpaid work as a supply teacher in a small boarding school overlooking the harbor in Ramsgate, where he made sketches of the view. When the proprietor of the school relocated to Isleworth, Middlesex, van Gogh moved with him, taking the train to Richmond and the remainder of the journey on foot. The arrangement did not work out and he left to became a Methodist minister's assistant, following his wish to "preach the gospel everywhere." At Christmas, he returned home and found work in a bookshop in Dordrecht for six months. He was not happy in this new position and spent much of his time either doodling or translating passages from the Bible into English, French and German. His roommate at the time, a young teacher named Görlitz, recalled that van Gogh ate frugally, and preferred not to eat meat.

Van Gogh's religious zeal grew until he felt he had found his true vocation. To support his effort to become a pastor his family sent him to Amsterdam to study theology in May 1877, where he stayed with his uncle Jan van Gogh, a naval Vice Admiral. Vincent prepared for the entrance exam with his uncle Johannes Stricker; a respected theologian who published the first "Life of Jesus" in the Netherlands. Van Gogh failed the exam, and left his uncle Jan's house in July 1878. He then undertook, but failed, a three-month course at the Vlaamsche Opleidingsschool, a Protestant missionary school in Laeken, near Brussels.

In January 1879, he took a temporary post as a missionary in the village of Petit Wasmes in the coal-mining district of Borinage in Belgium. Taking Christianity to what he saw as its logical conclusion, van Gogh lived like those he preached to, sleeping on straw in a small hut at the back of the baker's house where he was staying. The baker's wife reported hearing van Gogh sobbing at night in the hut. His choice of squalid living conditions did not endear him to the appalled church authorities, who dismissed him for "undermining the dignity of the priesthood." He then walked to Brussels, returned briefly to the village of Cuesmes in the Borinage but gave in to pressure from his parents to return home to Etten. He stayed there until around March the following year, a cause of increasing concern and frustration for his parents. There was particular conflict between Vincent and his father; Theodorus made inquiries about having his son committed to the lunatic asylum at Geel.

He returned to Cuesmes where he lodged with a miner named Charles Decrucq until October. Increasingly interested in the people and scenes around him, van Gogh recorded his time there in his drawings and followed Theo's suggestion that he should take up art in earnest. He traveled to Brussels that autumn intending to follow Theo's recommendation to study with the prominent Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him, in spite of his aversion to formal schools of art, to attend the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where he registered on 15 November 1880. At the Académie, he studied anatomy and the standard rules of modeling and perspective, about which he said, "...you have to know just to be able to draw the least thing." Van Gogh aspired to become an artist in God's service, stating: "...to try to understand the real significance of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God; one man wrote or told it in a book; another in a picture."

Etten, Drenthe and The Hague

In April 1881, van Gogh moved to the Etten countryside with his parents where he continued drawing, often using neighbors as subjects. Through the summer he spent time walking and talking with his recently widowed cousin, Kee Vos-Stricker, the daughter of his mother's older sister and Johannes Stricker, with whom he stayed in Amsterdam in 1878. Kee, who had an eight-year-old son, was seven years older than van Gogh. He proposed marriage, but she refused with the words, "No, never, never," (''niet, nooit, nimmer''). Late that November, van Gogh wrote a strongly worded letter to Johannes, and then hurried to Amsterdam where he spoke with him on several occasions. Kee refused to see him, and her parents wrote, "Your persistence is disgusting." In desperation, 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." He did not recall the event well, but later assumed that his uncle blew out the flame. Kee's father made it clear to him that Kee's refusal should be heeded and that the two would not be married because of van Gogh's inability to support himself. Van Gogh's perception of his uncle and former tutor's hypocrisy affected him deeply. That Christmas he quarreled violently with his father, to the point of refusing a gift of money, and left for The Hague.

In January 1882, he settled in The Hague where he called on his cousin-in-law, Anton Mauve (1838–88) who was a Dutch realist painter and a leading member of the Hague School. Mauve introduced him to painting in both oil and watercolor and lent him money to set up a studio but the two soon fell out, possibly over the issue of drawing from plaster casts. Mauve appears to have suddenly gone cold towards van Gogh and did not return a number of his letters. Van Gogh supposed that he had learned of his new domestic arrangement with an alcoholic prostitute, Clasina Maria "Sien" Hoornik (1850–1904) and her young daughter. He had met Sien towards the end of January when she had a five-year-old daughter and was pregnant. She had already borne two children who had died, although van Gogh was unaware of this. On 2 July, she gave birth to a baby boy, Willem. When van Gogh's father discovered the details of their relationship, he put considerable pressure on his son to abandon Sien and her children, although Vincent at first defied him.

Van Gogh's uncle Cornelis, an art dealer, commissioned 12 ink drawings of views of the city, which van Gogh completed soon after arriving in The Hague, along with a further seven drawings that May. In June, he spent three weeks in a hospital suffering from gonorrhea. During the summer he began to paint in oil. In autumn 1883, after a year together, he left Sien and the two children. He had thought of moving the family out of the city but in the end made the break. It is possible that lack of money pushed Sien back to prostitution—the home became less happy, and van Gogh may have felt family life was irreconcilable with his artistic development. When he left, Sien gave her daughter to her mother and baby Willem to her brother. She then moved to Delft, and later to Antwerp. Willem remembered being taken to visit his mother in Rotterdam at around the age of 12, where his uncle tried to persuade Sien to marry in order to legitimize the child. Willem remembered his mother saying, "But I know who the father is. He was an artist I lived with nearly 20 years ago in The Hague. His name was van Gogh." She then turned to Willem and said "You are called after him." While Willem believed himself van Gogh's son, the timing of his birth makes this unlikely. In 1904, Sien drowned herself in the River Scheldt. Van Gogh moved to the Dutch province of Drenthe, in the northern Netherlands. That December, driven by loneliness, he went to stay with his parents who had been posted to Nuenen, North Brabant.

Emerging artist

Nuenen and Antwerp (1883–1886)

In Nuenen, he devoted himself to drawing, and he gave money to boys to bring him birds' nests for subject matter for paintings, and he made many sketches and paintings of weavers in their cottages. In autumn 1884, Margot Begemann, a neighbor's daughter and ten years his senior, often joined him on his painting forays. She fell in love, and he reciprocated—though less enthusiastically. They decided to marry, but the idea was opposed by both families. As a result, Margot took an overdose of strychnine. She was saved when van Gogh rushed her to a nearby hospital.

For the first time, there was interest from Paris in his work. That spring, he completed what is generally considered his first major work, ''The Potato Eaters'', the culmination of several years work painting peasant character studies. In August 1885, his work was exhibited for the first time, in the windows of a paint dealer, Leurs, in The Hague. When he was accused of forcing himself on one of his young peasant sitters Gordina de Groot who became pregnant that September, the Catholic village priest forbade parishioners from modeling for him. During 1885, he painted several groups of still-life paintings.

From this period, ''Still-Life with Straw Hat and Pipe'' and ''Still-life with Earthen Pot and Clogs'' are characterized by smooth, meticulous brushwork and fine shading of colors. During his two-year stay in Nuenen, he completed numerous drawings and watercolors and nearly 200 oil paintings. His palette consisted mainly of somber earth tones, particularly dark brown, and he showed no sign of developing the vivid coloration that distinguishes his later, best-known work. When he complained that Theo was not making enough effort to sell his paintings in Paris, his brother wrote back, telling him that the paintings were too dark and not in line with the current style of bright Impressionist paintings.

In November 1885, he moved to Antwerp and rented a small room above a paint dealer's shop in the Rue des Images (''Lange Beeldekensstraat''). He had little money and ate poorly, preferring to spend the money Theo sent on painting materials and models. Bread, coffee and tobacco were his staple intake. In February 1886, he wrote to Theo saying that he could only remember eating six hot meals since May of the previous year. His teeth became loose and painful. While in Antwerp he applied himself to the study of color theory and spent time in museums, particularly studying the work of Peter Paul Rubens, gaining encouragement to broaden his palette to carmine, cobalt and emerald green. He bought a number of Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands, and incorporated their style into the background of a number of his paintings. While in Antwerp, van Gogh began to drink absinthe heavily. He was treated by Dr. Amadeus Cavenaile, whose practice was near the docklands, possibly for syphilis; the treatment of alum irrigation and sitz baths was jotted down by van Gogh in one of his notebooks. Despite his rejection of 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. For most of February, he was ill and run down by overwork, a poor diet and excessive smoking.

Paris (1886–1888)

Van Gogh traveled to Paris in March 1886, where he shared Theo's Rue Laval apartment on Montmartre, to study at Fernand Cormon's studio. In June, they took a larger apartment further uphill, at 54 Rue Lepic. Because the brothers had no need to write letters to communicate, little is known about van Gogh's stay in Paris, and less is known about this time than earlier or later periods of his life. In Paris he painted portraits of friends and acquaintances, still-life paintings, views of Le Moulin de la Galette, scenes in Montmartre, Asnières, and along the Seine.

During his stay in Paris, he collected more Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints; he became interested in such works, when in 1885 in Antwerp he used them to decorate the walls of his studio. He collected hundreds of prints, which are visible in the backgrounds of several of his paintings. In his 1887 ''Portrait of Père Tanguy'' several can be seen hanging on the wall behind the main figure. In ''The Courtesan or Oiran (after Kesai Eisen)'' (1887), van Gogh traced the figure from a reproduction on the cover of the magazine ''Paris Illustre'', which he then graphically enlarged in the painting. His 1888 ''Plum Tree in Blossom (After Hiroshige)'' is a vivid example of the admiration he had for the prints he collected. His version is slightly bolder than Hiroshige's original.

After seeing Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli's work at the Galerie Delareybarette, which he admired, van Gogh immediately adopted a brighter palette and a bolder attack, particularly in paintings such as his ''Seascape at Saintes-Maries'' (1888). Two years later, in 1890, Vincent and Theo paid to have a book about Monticelli published, and van Gogh bought a number of Monticelli's paintings, adding them to his collection.

For months, van Gogh worked at Cormon's studio where he frequented the circle of the British-Australian artist John Peter Russell, and met fellow students like Émile Bernard, Louis Anquetin, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec—who painted a portrait of van Gogh with pastel. The group congregated at Julien "Père" Tanguy's paint store; at that time the only place where Paul Cézanne's paintings were displayed. He had easy access to Impressionist works in Paris at the time. In 1886, two large vanguard exhibitions were staged; shows where Neo-Impressionism was first exhibited and seen, with works by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac becoming the talk of the town. Though Theo kept a stock of Impressionist paintings in his gallery on Boulevard Montmarte—by artists including Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro—van Gogh seemingly had problems acknowledging developments in how artists view and paint their subject matter.

Conflicts arose between the brothers. At the end of 1886 Theo found that living with Vincent was "almost unbearable". By the spring of 1887, they were again at peace, although van Gogh moved to Asnières a northwestern suburb of Paris, where he became acquainted with Signac. With Émile Bernard he adopted elements of pointillism, a technique in which a multitude of small colored dots are applied to the canvas that, when seen from a distance, create an optical blend of hues. The style stresses the value of complementary colors—including blue and orange—to form vibrant contrasts that are enhanced when juxtaposed. While in Asnières he painted parks and restaurants and the Seine, including ''Bridges across the Seine at Asnieres''.

In November 1887, Theo and Vincent met and befriended Paul Gauguin who had just arrived in Paris. Towards the end of the year, Vincent arranged an exhibition of paintings by himself, Bernard, Anquetin, and probably Toulouse-Lautrec in the ''Grand-Bouillon Restaurant du Chalet,'' 43 Avenue de Clichy, in Montmartre. In a contemporary account, Emile Bernard wrote of the event: "On the avenue de Clichy a new restaurant was opened. Vincent used to eat there. He proposed to the manager that an exhibition be held there .... Canvases by Anquetin, by Lautrec, by Koning ...filled the hall....It really had the impact of something new; it was more modern than anything that was made in Paris at that moment." There Bernard and Anquetin sold their first paintings, and van Gogh exchanged work with Gauguin who soon departed to Pont-Aven. Discussions on art, artists and their social situations that started during this exhibition continued and expanded to include visitors to the show like Pissarro and his son Lucien, Signac and Seurat. Finally in February 1888, feeling worn out from life in Paris, he left, having painted over 200 paintings during his two years in the city. Only hours before his departure, accompanied by Theo, he paid his first and only visit to Seurat in his ''atelier'' (studio).

Artistic breakthrough and final years

Move to Arles (1888–1889)

Van Gogh moved to Arles hoping for refuge; at the time he was ill from drink and suffering from smoker's cough. He arrived on 21 February 1888, and took a room at the Hôtel-Restaurant Carrel, which, idealistically, he had expected to look like one of Hokusai (1760–1849) or Utamaro's (1753–1806) prints. He had moved to the town with thoughts of founding a utopian art colony, and the Danish artist Christian Mourier-Petersen (1858–1945), became his companion for two months. Arles appeared exotic and filthy to van Gogh. In a letter he described it as a foreign country: "The Zouaves, the brothels, the adorable little Arlesiennes going to their First Communion, the priest in his surplice, who looks like a dangerous rhinocerous, the people drinking absinthe, all seem to me creatures from another world". A hundred years later, van Gogh was remembered by 113-year-old Jeanne Calment—who, as a 13 year old, was serving in her uncle's fabric shop where van Gogh wanted to buy some canvas—as "dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable", and "very ugly, ungracious, impolite, sick". She also recalled selling him colored pencils.

He was enchanted by the local landscape and light. His works from the period are richly draped in yellow, ultramarine and mauve. His portrayals of the Arles landscape are informed by his Dutch upbringing; the patchwork of fields and avenues appear flat and lack perspective, but excel in their intensity of color. The vibrant light in Arles excited him, and his newfound appreciation is seen in the range and scope of his work. That March he painted local landscapes using a gridded "perspective frame". Three of these paintings were shown at the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. In April, he was visited by the American artist Dodge MacKnight, who was living nearby at Fontvieille. On 1 May, he signed a lease for 15 francs a month in the eastern wing of the Yellow House at No. 2 Place Lamartine. The rooms were unfurnished and uninhabited for some time. He was still at the Hôtel Restaurant Carrel, but the rate charged by the hotel was 5 francs a week, which he found excessive. He disputed the price, took the case to a local arbitrator and was awarded a twelve franc reduction on the total bill.

He moved from the Hôtel Carrel to the Café de la Gare on 7 May, where he became friends with the proprietors, Joseph and Marie Ginoux. Although the Yellow House had to be furnished before he could fully move in, van Gogh was able to utilize it as a studio. Hoping to have a gallery to display his work, his project at this time was a series of paintings including ''Van Gogh's Chair'' (1888), ''Bedroom in Arles'' (1888), ''The Night Café'' (1888), ''Cafe Terrace at Night'' (September 1888), ''Starry Night Over the Rhone'' (1888), ''Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers'' (1888), all intended to form the ''décoration'' for the Yellow House. van Gogh wrote about ''The Night Café'': "I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime."

He visited Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer that June where he gave drawing lessons to a Zouave second lieutenant, Paul-Eugène Milliet and painted boats on the sea and the village. MacKnight introduced van Gogh to Eugène Boch, a Belgian painter who stayed at times in Fontvieille, and the two exchanged visits in July.

Gauguin's visit

When Gauguin agreed to visit Arles, van Gogh hoped for friendship and for his uptopian idea of a collective of artists. While waiting that 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.'' Boch's sister Anna (1848–1936), also an artist, purchased ''The Red Vineyard'' in 1890.

In preparation for Gauguin's visit he bought two beds, on advice from his friend the station's postal supervisor Joseph Roulin, whose portrait he painted, and on 17 September spent the first night in the still sparsely furnished Yellow House. When Gauguin consented to work and live side-by-side in Arles with van Gogh, he started to work on ''The Décoration for the Yellow House'', probably the most ambitious effort he ever undertook. van Gogh did two chair paintings: ''Van Gogh's Chair'' and ''Gauguin's Chair''.

After repeated requests, Gauguin finally arrived in Arles on 23 October. During November, the two painted together. Gauguin painted van Gogh's portrait ''The Painter of Sunflowers: Portrait of Vincent van Gogh,'' and uncharacteristically, van Gogh painted some pictures from memory—deferring to Gauguin's ideas in this—as well as his ''The Red Vineyard''. Their first joint outdoor painting exercise produced Les Alyscamps, and was conducted at the Alyscamps.

The two visited Montpellier that December and viewed works in the Alfred Bruyas collection by Courbet and Delacroix in the Musée Fabre, but their relationship began to deteriorate. Van Gogh greatly admired Gauguin, and desperately wanted to be treated as his equal. But Gauguin was arrogant and domineering, a fact that often frustrated the Dutchman. They quarreled fiercely about art; van Gogh felt an increasing fear that Gauguin was going to desert him, as a situation he described as one of "excessive tension" reached crisis point.

On 23 December 1888, frustrated and ill, van Gogh confronted Gauguin with a razor blade, but in panic, left and fled to a local brothel. Deeply lonely at the time, he often visited the prostitutes at a brothel on Rue du Bout d'Aeles as his single emotional and sensuous point of contact with other people. While there, he cut off his left ear, though it is often claimed that it was "only" the lower part of his left earlobe. He wrapped the severed ear in newspaper and handed it to a prostitute named Rachel, asking her to "keep this object carefully." He staggered home, where he was later found by Gauguin lying unconscious with his head covered in blood.

Van Gogh was taken to a hospital and remained in a critical state for several days. He asked for Gauguin continually over the next number of days, but the Frenchman stayed away. Gauguin told one of the policeman attending the case, "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." Gauguin wrote of van Gogh, "His state is worse, he wants to sleep with the patients, chase the nurses, and washes himself in the coal bucket. That is to say, he continues the biblical mortifications." In January 1889, van Gogh returned to the Yellow House, but spent the following month between the hospital and home, suffering from hallucinations and delusions that he was being poisoned. In March, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople, who called him "fou roux" (''the redheaded madman''). Paul Signac visited him in the hospital and van Gogh was allowed home in his company. In April, he moved into rooms owned by Dr. Rey, after floods damaged paintings in his own home. 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." Two months later he had left Arles and entered an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

Saint-Rémy (May 1889 – May 1890)

On 8 May 1889, accompanied by his carer, the Reverend Salles, he committed himself to the hospital at Saint Paul-de-Mausole. A former monastery in Saint-Rémy less than from Arles, the monastery is located in an area of cornfields, vineyards and olive trees at the time run by a former naval doctor, Dr. Théophile Peyron. Theo arranged for two small rooms—adjoining cells with barred windows. The second was to be used as a studio.

During his stay, the clinic and its garden became the main subjects of his paintings. He made several studies of the hospital interiors, such as ''Vestibule of the Asylum'' and ''Saint-Remy (September 1889)''. Some of the work from this time is characterized by swirls—including one of his best-known paintings ''The Starry Night''. He was allowed short supervised walks, which lead to paintings of cypresses and olive trees, like ''Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background 1889,'' ''Cypresses 1889,'' ''Cornfield with Cypresses'' (1889), ''Country road in Provence by Night'' (1890). Limited access to the world outside the clinic resulted in a shortage of subject matter. He was left to work on interpretations of other artist's paintings, such as Millet’s ''The Sower'' and ''Noon – Rest from Work (after Millet)'', as well as variations on his own earlier work. Van Gogh was an admirer of the Realism of Jules Breton, Gustave Courbet and Millet and compared his copies to a musician's interpreting Beethoven. Many of his most compelling works date from this period. His ''The Round of the Prisoners,'' (1890) was painted after an engraving by Gustave Doré (1832–1883); the face of the prisoner in the center of the painting and looking toward the viewer is van Gogh.

That September he produced a further two versions of ''Bedroom in Arles'', and in February 1890 painted four portraits of ''L'Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux)'', based on a charcoal sketch Gauguin had produced when Madame Ginoux sat for both artists at the beginning of November 1888. His work was praised by Albert Aurier in the ''Mercure de France'' in January 1890, when he was described as "a genius". In February invited by Les XX, a society of avant-garde painters in Brussels, he participated in their annual exhibition. At the opening dinner, Les XX member Henry de Groux insulted van Gogh's works. Toulouse-Lautrec demanded satisfaction, and Signac declared he would continue to fight for van Gogh's honor if Lautrec should surrender. Later, when van Gogh's exhibit was on display with the Artistes Indépendants in Paris, Monet said that his work was the best in the show. In February 1890, following the birth of his nephew Vincent Willem, he wrote in a letter to his mother, that with the new addition to the family, he "started right away to make a picture for him, to hang in their bedroom, branches of white almond blossom against a blue sky."

Auvers-sur-Oise (May–July 1890)

In May 1890, van Gogh left the clinic in Saint-Rémy to move nearer the physician Dr. Paul Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise, and also to Theo. Gachet was recommended by Camille Pissarro, had treated several other artists, and was himself an amateur artist. Van Gogh's first impression was that Gachet was "...sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much." In June 1890 he painted a number of portraits of the physician, including ''Portrait of Dr. Gachet'', and his only etching; in each the emphasis is on Gachet's melancholic disposition. Van Gogh stayed at the Auberge Ravoux, where he paid 3 francs and 50 centimes to rent an attic room measuring .

Before he left, In his last weeks at Saint-Rémy, van Gogh's thoughts returned to his "memories of the North", and several of the approximately 70 oils he painted during his 70 days in Auvers-sur-Oise, such as ''The Church at Auvers'', are reminiscent of northern scenes.

''Wheat Field with Crows'' (July 1890) is an example of the double square technique he developed in the last weeks of his life. In its turbulent intensity, it is among his most haunting and elemental works. It is often mistakenly believed to be his last work, but van Gogh scholar Jan Hulsker lists seven paintings that postdate it.

Barbizon painter Charles Daubigny had moved to Auvers in 1861, and this in turn drew other artists there, including Camille Corot and Honoré Daumier. In July 1890, van Gogh completed two paintings of ''Daubigny's Garden''; one of these is likely to be his final work. Although he had been troubled by illness throughout his adult life, the episodes were more serious during his last few years. Sometimes he was either unwilling or unable to paint, a factor that may have added to the mounting frustrations of an artist at the peak of his ability. Art critic Robert Hughes writes that from May 1889 to May 1890 he, "had fits of despair and hallucination during which he could not work, and in between them, long clear months in which he could and did, punctuated by extreme visionary ecstasy."

It is widely understood that on 27 July 1890, aged 37, van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. Where he was when he shot himself is unclear. Ingo Walther writes that "Some think van Gogh shot himself in the wheat field that had engaged his attention as an artist of late; others think he did it at a barn near the inn." Biographer David Sweetman writes that the bullet was deflected by a rib bone 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. He was attended by two physicians, neither with the capability to perform surgery to remove the bullet, who left him alone in his room, smoking his pipe. The following morning (Monday), as soon as he was notified, Theo rushed to be with Vincent, to find him in surprisingly good shape; within hours, however, he began to fail, the result of untreated infection in the wound. Vincent died in the evening, 29 hours after he shot himself. Theo reported his brother's last words as "The sadness will last forever."

Van Gogh was buried on 30 July in the municipal cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise at a funeral attended by Theo van Gogh, Andries Bonger, Charles Laval, Lucien Pissarro, Émile Bernard, Julien Tanguy and Dr. Gachet amongst some 20 family and friends, as well as a number of locals. The funeral was described by Émile Bernard in a letter to Albert Aurier. Theo suffered from syphilis and his health declined rapidly after Vincent's death. Weak and unable to come to terms with Vincent's absence, he died six months later, on 25 January, at Den Dolder. The original burial plot was leased for 15 years; the intention was to bury Vincent alongside Theo. Vincent's remains were exhumed on 13 June 1905, in the presence of Jo Bonger, Dr. Gachet and others, and relocated, eventually for Theo to be buried beside him. The precise location of the original grave is no longer known. In 1914, the year she had van Gogh's letters published, Jo Bonger had Theo moved from Utrecht and reburied with Vincent.

While many of Vincent's late paintings are somber, they are essentially optimistic and reflect his desire to return to lucid mental health right up to the time of his death. Yet some of his final works reflect his deepening concerns. Referring to his paintings of wheatfields under troubled skies, he commented in a letter to his brother Theo: "I did not have to go out of my way very much in order to try to express sadness and extreme loneliness." In particular, the work ''Wheatfield with Crows'' serves as a compelling and poignant expression of the artist's state of mind in his final days, a painting Hulsker describes as "somber and hopeless," painted by a "desperate" artist.

There has been much debate over the years as to the source of van Gogh's illness and its effect on his work. Over 150 psychiatrists have attempted to label its root, with some 30 different diagnoses. Diagnoses include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, syphilis, poisoning from swallowed paints, temporal lobe epilepsy and acute intermittent porphyria. Any of these could have been the culprit and been aggravated by malnutrition, overwork, insomnia and consumption of alcohol, especially absinthe.

In ''Van Gogh: the Life'', a biography published in 2011, authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith argue that van Gogh did not commit suicide. They contend that he was shot accidentally by two boys he knew who had “a malfunctioning gun”. However experts at the Van Gogh Museum remain unconvinced.

Work

Van Gogh drew and painted with watercolors while at school; few of these works survive and authorship is challenged on some of those that do. When he committed to art as an adult, he began at an elementary level, copying the ''Cours de dessin'', a drawing course edited by Charles Bargue. Within two years he had begun to seek commissions. In spring 1882, his uncle, Cornelis Marinus, owner of a well-known gallery of contemporary art in Amsterdam, asked him for drawings of the Hague. Van Gogh's work did not live up to his uncle's expectations. Marinus offered a second commission, this time specifying the subject matter in detail, but was once again disappointed with the result. Nevertheless, van Gogh persevered. He improved the lighting of his studio by installing variable shutters and experimented with a variety of drawing materials. For more than a year he worked on single figures—highly elaborated studies in "Black and White", which at the time gained him only criticism. Today, they are recognized as his first masterpieces.

Early in 1883, he began to work on multi-figure compositions, which he based on his drawings. 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. By Autumn 1882, his brother had enabled him financially to turn out his first paintings, but all the money Theo could supply was soon spent. Then, in spring 1883, van Gogh turned to renowned Hague School artists like Weissenbruch and Blommers, and received technical support from them, as well as from painters like De Bock and Van der Weele, both second generation Hague School artists. When he moved to Nuenen after the intermezzo in Drenthe he began a number of large-sized paintings but destroyed most of them. ''The Potato Eaters'' and its companion pieces—''The Old Tower'' on the Nuenen cemetery and ''The Cottage''—are the only ones to have survived. Many paintings and drawings from this and earlier periods were lost when his family moved from Nuenen to Breda in March 1886 and stored Vincent's belongings in an attic. Following a visit to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh was aware that many of his faults were due to lack of technical experience. So in November 1885 he traveled to Antwerp and later to Paris to learn and develop his skill.

More or less acquainted with Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist techniques and theories, van Gogh went to Arles to develop these new possibilities. But within a short time, older ideas on art and work reappeared: ideas such as working with serial imagery on related or contrasting subject matter, which would reflect on the purposes of art. As his work progressed, he painted many ''Self-portraits''. Already in 1884 in Nuenen he had worked on a series that was to decorate the dining room of a friend in Eindhoven. Similarly in Arles, in spring 1888 he arranged his ''Flowering Orchards'' into triptychs, began a series of figures that found its end in ''The Roulin Family series'', and finally, when Gauguin had consented to work and live in Arles side-by-side with Van Gogh, he started to work on ''The Décorations for the Yellow House'', which was by some accounts the most ambitious effort he ever undertook. Most of his later work is involved with elaborating on or revising its fundamental settings. In the spring of 1889, he painted another, smaller group of orchards. In an April letter to Theo, he said, "I have 6 studies of Spring, two of them large orchards. There is little time because these effects are so short-lived."

Art historian Albert Boime believes that van Gogh—even in seemingly fantastical compositions like ''Starry Night''—based his work in reality. The ''White House at Night'', shows a house at twilight with a prominent star surrounded by a yellow halo in the sky. Astronomers at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos calculated that the star is Venus, which was bright in the evening sky in June 1890 when Van Gogh is believed to have painted the picture.

Self portraits

Van Gogh created many self-portraits during his lifetime. He was a prolific self-portraitist, who painted himself 37 times between 1886 and 1889. In all, the gaze of the painter is seldom directed at us; even when it is a fixed gaze, he appears to look elsewhere. The paintings vary in intensity and color and some portray the artist with beard, some beardless, some with bandages—depicting the episode in which he severed his ear. ''Self-portrait Without Beard'', from late September 1889, is one of the most expensive paintings of all time, selling for $71.5 million in 1998 in New York. At the time, it was the third (or an inflation-adjusted fourth) most expensive painting ever sold. It was also van Gogh's last self-portrait, given as a birthday gift to his mother.

All of the self-portraits painted in Saint-Rémy show the artist's head from the right, the side opposite his mutilated ear, as he painted himself reflected in his mirror. During the final weeks of his life in Auvers-sur-Oise, he produced many paintings, but no self-portraits, a period in which he returned to painting the natural world.

Portraits

Van Gogh, known for his landscapes, seemed to find painting portraits his greatest ambition. He said of portrait studies, "The only thing in painting that excites me to the depths of my soul, and which makes me feel the infinite more than anything else."

To his sister he wrote, "I should like to paint portraits which appear after a century to people living then as apparitions. By which I mean that I do not endeavor to achieve this through photographic resemblance, but my means of our impassioned emotions—that is to say using our knowledge and our modern taste for color as a means of arriving at the expression and the intensification of the character."

Of painting portraits, van Gogh wrote: "in a picture I want to say something comforting as music is comforting. I want to paint men and women with that something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolize, and which we seek to communicate by the actual radiance and vibration of our coloring."

Cypresses

One of the most popular and widely known series of van Gogh's paintings are his Cypresses. During the Summer of 1889, at sister Wil's request, he made several smaller versions of ''Wheat Field with Cypresses''. The works are characterised by swirls and densely painted impasto—and produced one of his best-known paintings—''The Starry Night''. Other works from the series have similar stylistic elements including ''Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background'' (1889) ''Cypresses'' (1889), ''Cypresses with Two Figures'' (1889–1890), ''Wheat Field with Cypresses'' (1889), (van Gogh made several versions of this painting that year), ''Road with Cypress and Star'' (1890), and ''Starry Night Over the Rhone'' (1888). These have become synonymous with van Gogh's work through their stylistic uniqueness. According to art historian Ronald Pickvance,

''Road with Cypress and Star'' (1890), is compositionally as unreal and artificial as the ''Starry Night.'' Pickvance goes on to say the painting ''Road with Cypress and Star'' represents an exalted experience of reality, a conflation of North and South, what both van Gogh and Gauguin referred to as an "abstraction". Referring to ''Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background,'' on or around 18 June 1889, in a letter to Theo, he wrote, "At last I have a landscape with olives and also a new study of a Starry Night."

Hoping to also have a gallery for his work, his major project at this time was a series of paintings including ''Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers'' (1888), and ''Starry Night Over the Rhone'' (1888) that all intended to form the ''décorations for the Yellow House''.

Flowering Orchards

The series of ''Flowering Orchards'', sometimes referred to as the ''Orchards in Blossom'' paintings, were among the first groups of work that van Gogh completed after his arrival in Arles, Provence in February 1888. The 14 paintings in this group are optimistic, joyous and visually expressive of the burgeoning Springtime. They are delicately sensitive, silent, quiet and unpopulated. About ''The Cherry Tree'' Vincent wrote to Theo on 21 April 1888 and said he had 10 orchards and: ''one big (painting) of a cherry tree, which I've spoiled''. The following spring he painted another smaller group of orchards, including ''View of Arles, Flowering Orchards''.

Van Gogh was taken by the landscape and vegetation of the South of France, and often visited the farm gardens near Arles. Because of the vivid light supplied by the Mediterranean climate his palette significantly brightened. From his arrival, he was interested in capturing the effect of the seasons on the surrounding landscape and plant life.

Flowers

Van Gogh painted several versions of landscapes with flowers, as seen in ''View of Arles with Irises,'' and paintings of flowers, including ''Irises'', ''Sunflowers'', lilacs and roses. Some reflect his interests in the language of color, and also in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

He completed two series of sunflowers: the first while he was in Paris in 1887, and the second during his stay in Arles the following year. The first series shows living flowers in the ground. In the second series, they are dying in vases. The 1888 paintings were created during a rare period of optimism for the artist. He intended them to decorate a bedroom where Gauguin was supposed to stay in Arles that August, when the two would create the community of artists van Gogh had long hoped for. The flowers are rendered with thick brushstrokes (impasto) and heavy layers of paint.

In an August 1888 letter to Theo, he wrote, :"I am hard at it, painting with the enthusiasm of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won't surprise you when you know that what I'm at is the painting of some sunflowers. If I carry out this idea there will be a dozen panels. So the whole thing will be a symphony in blue and yellow. I am working at it every morning from sunrise on, for the flowers fade so quickly. I am now on the fourth picture of sunflowers. This fourth one is a bunch of 14 flowers ... it gives a singular effect."

Wheat fields

Van Gogh made several painting excursions during visits to the landscape around Arles. He made a number of paintings featuring harvests, wheat fields and other rural landmarks of the area, including ''The Old Mill'' (1888); a good example of a picturesque structure bordering the wheat fields beyond. It was one of seven canvases sent to Pont-Aven on 4 October 1888 as exchange of work with Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard, Charles Laval, and others. At various times in his life, van Gogh painted the view from his window—at The Hague, Antwerp, Paris. These works culminated in The Wheat Field series, which depicted the view he could see from his adjoining cells in the asylum at Saint-Rémy.

Writing in July 1890, van Gogh said that he had become absorbed "in the immense plain against the hills, boundless as the sea, delicate yellow". He had become captivated by the fields in May when the wheat was young and green. The weather worsened in July, and he wrote to Theo of "vast fields of wheat under troubled skies", adding that he did not "need to go out of my way to try and express sadness and extreme loneliness".

Legacy

Posthumous fame

Following his first exhibitions in the late 1880s, van Gogh's fame grew steadily among colleagues, art critics, dealers and collectors. After his death, memorial exhibitions were mounted in Brussels, Paris, The Hague and Antwerp. In the early 20th century, there were retrospectives in Paris (1901 and 1905), and Amsterdam (1905), and important group exhibitions in Cologne (1912), New York (1913) and Berlin (1914). These had a noticeable impact on later generations of artists. By the mid 20th century van Gogh was seen as one of the greatest and most recognizable painters in history. In 2007 a group of Dutch historians compiled the "Canon of Dutch History" to be taught in schools and included van Gogh as one of the fifty topics of the canon, alongside other national icons such as Rembrandt and De Stijl.

Together with those of Pablo Picasso, Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings ever sold, as estimated from auctions and private sales. Those sold for over $100 million (today's equivalent) include Portrait of Dr. Gachet, Portrait of Joseph Roulin and Irises. A Wheatfield with Cypresses was sold in 1993 for $57 million, a spectacularly high price at the time, while his Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear was sold privately in the late 1990s for an estimated $80/$90 million.

Influence

In his final letter to Theo, Vincent admitted that as he did not have any children, he viewed his paintings as his progeny. Reflecting on this, the historian Simon Schama concluded that he "did have a child of course, Expressionism, and many, many heirs." Schama mentioned a wide number of artists who have adapted elements of van Gogh's style, including Willem de Kooning, Howard Hodgkin and Jackson Pollock. The Fauves extended both his use of color and freedom in application, as did German Expressionists of the Die Brücke group, and as other early modernists. Abstract Expressionism of the 1940s and 1950s is seen as in part inspired from van Gogh's broad, gestural brush strokes. In the words of art critic Sue Hubbard: "At the beginning of the twentieth century Van Gogh gave the Expressionists a new painterly language that enabled them to go beyond surface appearance and penetrate deeper essential truths. It is no coincidence that at this very moment Freud was also mining the depths of that essentially modern domain—the subconscious. This beautiful and intelligent exhibition places Van Gogh where he firmly belongs; as the trailblazer of modern art."

In 1957, Francis Bacon (1909–1992) based a series of paintings on reproductions of van Gogh's ''The Painter on the Road to Tarascon'', the original of which was destroyed during World War II. Bacon was inspired by not only an image he described as "haunting", but also van Gogh himself, whom Bacon regarded as an alienated outsider, a position which resonated with Bacon. The Irish artist further identified with van Gogh's theories of art and quoted lines written in a letter to Theo, "[R]eal painters do not paint things as they are...They paint them as ''they themselves'' feel them to be". An exhibition devoted to Vincent van Gogh's letters took place in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from October 2009 to January 2010 and then moved to the Royal Academy in London from late January to April.

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

;General and biographical

Bernard, Bruce (ed.). ''Vincent by Himself''. London: Time Warner, 2004.

Callow, Philip. ''Vincent van Gogh: A Life''. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1990. ISBN 1-56663-134-3

Erickson, Kathleen Powers. ''At Eternity's Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent van Gogh'', 1998. ISBN 0-8028-4978-4

Gayford, Martin. ''The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles''. London: Penguin, 2006. ISBN 0-670-91497-5

Grossvogel, David I. ''Behind the Van Gogh Forgeries: A Memoir by David I. Grossvogel''. San Jose: Author's Choice Press, 2001. ISBN 0-595-17717-4

Hammacher, A.M. ''Vincent van Gogh: Genius and Disaster''. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985. ISBN 0-8109-8067-3

Hughes, Robert. ''Nothing If Not Critical''. London: The Harvill Press, 1990. ISBN 0-14-016524-X

Hulsker, Jan. ''Vincent and Theo van Gogh; A dual biography''. Ann Arbor: Fuller Publications, 1990. ISBN 0-940537-05-2

Hulsker, Jan ''The Complete Van Gogh''. Oxford: Phaidon, 1980. ISBN 0-7148-2028-8

Hughes, Robert. "Introduction". ''The Portable Van Gogh''. 2002. New York: Universe. ISBN 0-7893-0803-7

Lubin, Albert J. ''Stranger on the earth: A psychological biography of Vincent van Gogh''. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972. ISBN 0-03-091352-7

McQuillan, Melissa. ''Van Gogh''. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989. ISBN 1-86046-859-4

Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White. ''Van Gogh: the Life'', New York: Random House, 2011. ISBN 978-0-375-50748-9

Nemeczek, Alfred. ''Van Gogh in Arles''. Prestel Verlag, 1999. ISBN 3-7913-2230-3

Pomerans, Arnold. ''The Letters of Vincent van Gogh''. London: Penguin Classics, 1997. ISBN 0-14-044674-5

Petrucelli, Alan W. ''Morbid Curiosity: The Disturbing Demises of the Famous and Infamous''. Perigee Trade. ISBN 0399535276

Rewald, John. ''Post-Impressionism: From van Gogh to Gauguin''. London: Secker & Warburg, 1978. ISBN 0-436-41151-2

Rewald, John. ''Studies in Post-Impressionism''. New York: Abrams, 1986. ISBN 0-8109-1632-0

Sund, Judy. ''Van Gogh''. London: Phaidon, 2002. ISBN 0-7148-4084-X

Sweetman, David. ''Van Gogh: His Life and His Art''. New York: Touchstone. 1990. ISBN 0-671-74338-4

Tralbaut, Marc Edo. ''Vincent van Gogh, le mal aimé''. Edita, Lausanne (French) & Macmillan, London 1969 (English); reissued by Macmillan, 1974 and by Alpine Fine Art Collections, 1981. ISBN 0-933516-31-2

van Heugten, Sjraar. ''Van Gogh The Master Draughtsman''. London: Thames and Hudson, 2005. ISBN 978-0-500-23825-7

Walther, Ingo F. & Metzger, Rainer. ''Van Gogh: the Complete Paintings''. New York: Taschen, 1997. ISBN 3-8228-8265-8

;Art historical

Boime, Albert. ''Vincent van Gogh: Die Sternennacht-Die Geschichte des Stoffes und der Stoff der Geschichte'', Frankfurt/Mainz: Fischer, 1989 ISBN 3-596-23953-2

Cachin, Françoise & Welsh-Ovcharov, Bogomila. ''Van Gogh à Paris'' (exh. cat. Musée d'Orsay, Paris 1988), Paris: RMN, 1988. ISBN 2-7118-2159-5.

Dorn, Roland: ''Décoration: Vincent van Gogh's Werkreihe für das Gelbe Haus in Arles''. Zürich & New York: Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, 1990. ISBN 3-487-09098-8.

Dorn, Roland, Leeman, Fred & alt. ''Vincent van Gogh and Early Modern Art, 1890–1914'' (exh. cat). Essen & Amsterdam, 1990. ISBN 3-923641-33-8 (in English) ISBN 3-923641-31-1 (in German) ISBN 90-6630-247-X (in Dutch)

Dorn, Roland, Keyes, George S. & alt. ''Van Gogh Face to Face: The Portraits'' (exh. cat). Detroit, Boston & Philadelphia, 2000–01, Thames & Hudson, London & New York, 2000. ISBN 0-89558-153-1

Druick, Douglas, Zegers, Pieter Kort & alt. ''Van Gogh and Gauguin-The Studio of the South'' (exh. cat). Chicago & Amsterdam 2001–02, Thames & Hudson, London & New York 2001. ISBN 0-500-51054-7

Fell, Derek. "The Impressionist Garden". London: Frances Lincoln, 1997. ISBN 0-7112-1148-5

Geskó, Judit, ed. ''Van Gogh in Budapest''. Budapest: Vince Books, 2006. ISBN 978-963-7063-34-3 (English edition).ISBN 963-7063-33-1 (Hungarian edition).

Ives, Colta, Stein, Susan Alyson & alt. ''Vincent van Gogh-The Drawings''. New Haven: YUP, 2005. ISBN 0-300-10720-X

Kōdera, Tsukasa. ''Vincent van Gogh-Christianity versus Nature''. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1990. ISBN 90-272-5333-1

Pickvance, Ronald. ''English Influences on Vincent van Gogh'' (exh. cat). University of Nottingham & alt. 1974/75). London: Arts Council, 1974.

Pickvance, Ronald. ''Van Gogh in Arles'' (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Abrams, 1984. ISBN 0-87099-375-5

Pickvance, Ronald. ''Van Gogh In Saint-Rémy and Auvers'' (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Abrams, 1986. ISBN 0-87099-477-8

Orton, Fred and Pollock, Griselda. "Rooted in the Earth: A Van Gogh Primer", in: ''Avant-Gardes and Partisans Reviewed''. London: Redwood Books, 1996. ISBN 0-7190-4398-0

Rosenblum, Robert (1975), Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko, New York: Harper & Row, ISBN 0-06-430057-9

Schaefer, Iris, von Saint-George, Caroline & Lewerentz, Katja: ''Painting Light. The hidden techniques of the Impressionists''. Milan: Skira, 2008. ISBN 88-6130-609-8

Turner, J. (2000). ''From Monet to Cézanne: late 19th-century French artists''. Grove Art. New York: St Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-22971-2

Van der Wolk, Johannes: ''De schetsboeken van Vincent van Gogh'', Meulenhoff/Landshoff, Amsterdam 1986 ISBN 90-290-8154-6; translated to English: ''The Seven Sketchbooks of Vincent van Gogh: a facsimile edition'', New York: Abrams, 1987.

Van Heugten, Sjraar. "Radiographic images of Vincent van Gogh's paintings in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum". ''Van Gogh Museum Journal''. 1995. 63–85. ISBN 90-400-9796-8

Van Heugten, Sjraar. ''Vincent van Gogh Drawings, vol. 1'', Bussum: V+K, 1996. ISBN 90-6611-501-7 (Dutch edition).

Van Uitert, Evert, ''et al.'' ''Van Gogh in Brabant: Paintings and drawings from Etten and Nuenen''. (English edition). Zwolle: Waanders, Zwolle, 1987. ISBN 90-6630-104-X

Van Uitert, Evert, van Tilborgh, Louis, van Heughten, Sjraar. ''Paintings''. (1990). (Centenary exhibition catalogue) Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh.

External links

Vincent van Gogh Biography, Style and Critical Reception.

Vincent van Gogh Gallery. The complete works and letters of Vincent van Gogh.

Van Gogh Letters – The complete letters of Van Gogh, translated into English and annotated. Published by the Van Gogh Museum.

Johanna Gesina van Gogh-Bonger, Memoir of Vincent van Gogh

Memoir of Vincent van Gogh. By Johanna Gesina van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent's sister in law.

Van Gogh's Letters, unabridged and annotated.

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Van Gogh at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., United States.

'Drama at Arles new light on Van Gogh's self-mutilation' from Apollo, September 2005 by Martin Bailey.

''Painted with Words: Vincent van Gogh's Letters to Emile Bernard'', New York Times, 9 September 2007

Painted with Words: Vincent van Gogh's Letters to Emile Bernard – Facsimiles at The Morgan Library & Museum

Art Historians Claim Van Gogh's ear 'Cut Off by Gauguin' by Angelique Chrisafis, ''The Guardian'', 4 May 2009

Union List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies. ULAN Full Record Display for Vincent Van Gogh. Getty Vocabulary Program, Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California.

Admiel Kosman, ''Treading toward sanctity''.

Van Gogh, Vincent Van Gogh, Vincent Van Gogh, Vincent Category:Dutch expatriates in Belgium Category:Dutch expatriates in France Category:Dutch expatriates in the United Kingdom Category:Dutch painters Van Gogh, Vincent Van Gogh, Vincent Category:People from Zundert Van Gogh, Vincent Van Gogh, Vincent Category:Vincent van Gogh paintings

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Mark Bradford (born 1961 Los Angeles, California) is an American artist living and working in Los Angeles.

Life and work

He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, located at Valencia, California, U.S., earning an MFA in 1997 and a BFA in 1995. He is known for grid-like abstract paintings combining collage with paints.

He has exhibited in the Sao Paulo Biennial (2006), Whitney Biennial (2006), Liverpool Biennial (2006), ''ARCO 2003'' in Madrid, ''In Site'' at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the Centro Cultural de Tijuana, ''USA Today'' at The Royal Academy in London, ''Street Level'' (2007) at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, at the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University (2010), Sikkema Jenkins Gallery , the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2011), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2011).

The Los Angeles Times newspaper insert of "West" magazine featured an eight page article on him, June 11, 2006.

He currently resides in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California.

Awards

He has won the Bucksbaum Award (2006), the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2003), the Nancy Graves Foundation Grant (2002) and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award. Most recently, he was a 2009 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship (also called the "MacArthur Genius Award").

Contributions

2008 ''Life on Mars,'' the 2008 ''Carnegie International''

References

External links

Biography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips from PBS series ''Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century'' - Season 4 (2007).

The Saatchi Gallery; About Mark Bradford and his art Additional information on Mark Bradford including artworks, text panels, articles, and full biography.

Cirrus Gallery Biography of Mark Bradford.

Youtube interview Mark Bradford video interview as part of the Street Level exhibition at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Street Level Exhibition and catalogue at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University featuring and in-depth look at the work of Mark Bradford. Catalogue edited by Trevor Schoonmaker.

Pinocchio is on fire Artist's webpage

Category:American painters Category:Artists from California Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:African American artists Category:Contemporary painters Category:MacArthur Fellows Category: Gay artists

es:Mark Bradford

Robin Rhode is a South African artist, born 1976 in Cape Town, South Africa, now based in Berlin, Germany. In 1998, he obtained a diploma in Fine Art from Technikon Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, followed by a postgraduate program at the South African School of Film, Television and Dramatic Art in Johannesburg.

Working predominantly with everyday material like charcoal, chalk and paint, Rhode started out creating performances that are based on his own drawings of objects that he interacts with. He expanded and refined this practice into creating photography sequences and digital animations. These works are characterized by an interdisciplinary approach that brings aspects of performance, happening, drawing, film and photography together. Rhode often returns to his native South Africa, creating work in the streets of Johannesburg and continuously registering the traces of poverty and social inequality. An outstanding characteristic of his works is his addressing of social concerns in a playful and productive manner, incorporating these issues into his practice without simplifying or judging them.

Artistic practice

Reminiscent of practices of street culture, Rhode usually works in public spaces, using walls, public basketball courts or just the street as his “canvas”. His preferred materials are easily accessible ones like charcoal and paint. As a result, his works stand out through their simplicity and their formal clarity, emphasizing the idea over lavishness of production. Rhode transforms simple shapes into elements of narratives, interacting with only imagined presences. This narrative practice goes back to an initiation ritual at South African high schools – that Rhode himself experienced - where new students are forced to draw and interact with their drawing. Rhode’s reference to this event takes this social gesture further into a playful mode of *addressing cultural phenomena. Rhode’s stories often include a moment of conflict and possible failure. The black and white 26-panel photographic work ''Juggla'' for instance depicts a circus-like clown. Prodding at this form of popular entertainment, the faceless character is at the mercy of the wealthy, juggling or holding nothing. With ''Juggla'', Rhode references Minstrel Carnivals from the Caribbean and South Africa where troupes, made up of members from a particular neighborhood of the city, are assembled and each is expected to parade and perform for its local community in exchange for food and drink. Rhode also pays homage to the fervent utopian ideals of the Bauhaus, implicating Oscar Schlemmer’s seminal ''Triadic Ballet'' from the twenties, a performance experiment created in the Bauhaus studios in the absence of a theatre space, balancing “emotional impulses” with an agenda of political agitation. His drawings of objects like a bicycle, a motorbike, a car, or of abstract shapes and patterns are employed as physical elements in a story, often alluding to the act of creation itself as in ''Promenade'' (2008).

Rhode created a display at New York’s Grand Central Station, which was commissioned by BMW. In it, he used a BMW Z4 convertible to create a sprawling work on floor panels by indicating a winding course in a Los Angeles studio which he had a stunt driver follow in the convertible car with its tired coated with pigment.

Performances

Rhode’s earlier practice was dominated by performances which took place first on the streets, later in museums and galleries. One of the most popular performances is Car Theft (2003, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN) where Rhode appears as a hooded character in street clothes who first draws a car on the wall and then tries to break in, eventually throwing a stone at the drawn object; highlighting his signature method of attempting to playfully transform flat renderings of everyday objects into illusory three-dimensional ones through his physical interactions. Very much a provocateur and cultural subversive, he shares conceptual links with artists as varied as Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hammons and the Russian constructivists. Yet, these "high art" associations do not negate his equally strong ties to popular cultural phenomena such as rappers Wu-Tang Clan, the Nike brand, graffiti art, and music-video director Hype Williams. Rhode is realizing his own personal vision of the world that surrounds him, using art as a means to approach and reflect it in an interdisciplinary practice that goes beyond established borders of genres and traditional ways to engage with art. In Skipping Rope (2005, Musée ďArt Moderne de la Ville de Paris/ARC) Rhode interacted with the audience, engaging them into playing with an imaginary rope. The spectators became participants, taking part in Rhode’s imagination that continuously seeks to reach beyond the boundaries of traditional artist-spectator roles.

Professional career

Trajectory of exhibitions

Rhode had his first solo exhibition at Perry Rubenstein Gallery in New York in 2004. In 2005, he was featured in the 51st Venice Biennale and New Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2007 he had a large-scale exhibition at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, curated by Stephanie Rosenthal accompanied by his first monograph Walk Off, published by Hatje Cantz. He had a second gallery exhibition in 2007 with the Perry Rubenstein Gallery (a large scale exhibition at all three gallery spaces). In September 2008 he had a solo show at both the Hayward Gallery and White Cube Gallery, London and participated in ''Prospect.1'' New Orleans, the New Orleans Biennale curated by Dan Cameron. In 2009, Robin Rhode will collaborate with the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes to build the stage design and visual accompaniment for Andsnes’ contemporary exploration of Modest Mussorgsky’s piano suite of “Pictures at an Exhibition” which will premiere at Lincoln Center, New York City, in November 2009.

Works in public collections

Rhode’s work is included in the collections of numerous international institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC; the Honart Museum Collection, Tehran; the Goetz Collection, Munich, Germany; Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa; and the Collection Frac Champagne-Ardenne, Reims.

Selected solo exhibitions and performances

''Robin Rhode'', LACMA, Los Angeles, CA (2010, Solo Exhibition)

''Robin Rhode'', Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York, NY (2009, Solo Exhibition)

''Robin Rhode'', The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH (2009, Solo Exhibition)

''Through the Gate'', White Cube Gallery, London, UK (2008, Solo Exhibition)

''Who Saw Who'', Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2008, Solo Exhibition)

''Walk Off'', Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2007, Solo Exhibition)

''Robin Rhode'', Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York, NY (2007, Solo Exhibition)

''Robin Rhode'', Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2006, Solo Exhibition)

''The Storyteller'', FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, France (2006, Solo Exhibition)

''The Storyteller'', carlier | gebauer, Berlin, Germany (2006, Solo Exhibition)

''Empieza el Juego'', Zaragoza, Madrid, Spain (2006, Solo Exhibition)

''Street Smart'', Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL (2005, Solo Exhibition)

''Robin Rhode'', Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York, NY (2004, Solo Exhibition)

''The Score'', Artists Space, New York, NY (2004, Performance)

''Fresh'', South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (2000, Performance)

''Living in Public'', Market Theatre Galleries, Johannesburg, South Africa (2000, Performance)

Awards

Winner, Illy Prize, Art Brussels, Brussels, Belgium (2007)

Winner, W South Beach Commission, Art Positions at Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, FL

ars viva 05/06 Identität/Identity, Award, Berlin, Germany (2005)

Artist-in-Residence, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (2003)

Artist-in-Residence, The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Boston, MA (2003)

Artist-in-Residence, Karl Hofer Gesellschaft (HDK) Berlin, Germany (2001)

Artist-in-Residence, Gasworks Gallery, London, UK (2001)

Artist-in-Residence, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (2000)

References

Website of Robin Rhode's primary gallery, Perry Rubenstein Gallery New York, NY (extensive press archive and resource of images)

Website of Rhode's solo exhibition Who Saw Who at Hayward Gallery

Modern Painters, Robin Rhode and William Kentridge in Conversation, June 2008

Benjamin Genocchio, "Robin Rhode," ''The New York Times,'' June 8, 2007

"Something There Is That Loves a Wall," Profile by Carol Kino, ''The New York Times,'' May 13, 2007

''Walk Off'' Edited by Stephanie Rosenthal, Exhibition catalogue, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 2007

Roberta Smith, "Art in Review; Robin Rhode," ''The New York Times,'' October 29, 2004

Esther Addley, "Chalk Talk: the Wall and Floor Drawer Creating a stir on the Art Scene," ''The Guardian,'' 20 September 2008

External links

General information and images

Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York - Rhode's primary gallery,

Exhibitions

''Who Saw Who'', Robin Rhode's 2008 solo exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London. (September - December 2008).

''Walk Off'' at Haus der Kunst, Munich (September 16, 2007 - January 6, 2008).

''Street Level'' at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Durham, NC. (March 29 - July 29, 2007).

The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl

Publications

''Robin Rhode. Walk Off'', edited by Stephanie Rosenthal, Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz 2007.

Street Level: Mark Bradford, William Cordova, and Robin Rhode. Edited by Trevor Schoonmaker. Exh. cat. Durham: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, 2007.

Yee, Linda, ed. Street Art, Street Life. Exh cat. New York: Aperture/Bronx Museum of the Arts, 2008.

InitiArt Magazine's in-depth interview with Robin Rhode on his art and life in Berlin, 2010.

Category:1976 births Category:Living people Category:South African performance artists Category:People from Cape Town

de:Robin Rhode