Unbeknown to Theo, Vincent suddenly arrived in Paris and asked his brother to meet him in the Louvres.
He would spend two years there, and at last felt accepted as a painter among painters. He attended the Cormon workshop, and met all the Parisian circle. .
Busy with ideas and work, he wanted to promote the Impressionnists. With Theo, he tried to introduce them in Holland and in England, but to no avail.
He organized the first exhibition of Japanese engravings in Paris, which would influence the young painters of the Cormon workshop.
His palette will greatly lighten at the contact of the Impressionnists, their theory on colours, and above all at the contact of Signac, with whom he would paint the Seine banks.
He also created the group of the “Impressionnistes du Petit Boulevard” which gathered Toulouse-Lautrec, Pissaro, Guillaumin, Anquetin…for whom he organized a great exhibition –also a failure- in a restaurant: “Le Grand Bouillon”.
He would spend long over-alcoholic evenings talking of art with the Pissaros, Anquetin, and Bernard who were his friends.
Tired of the city after two years, he decided to follow Toulouse-Lautrec’s advice and go to the Midi to find “Japanese colours”.
Arles, “Porte du Midi”, would be his first stop, he then wanted to go to Marseille in the wake of one of his favourite painters, Monticelli.