Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy (Van Gogh series)
Encyclopedia
Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy is a collection of paintings that Vincent van Gogh
did when he was a self-admitted patient at the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy
from May 1889 until May 1890. During much of his stay there he was confined to the grounds of the asylum, and he made paintings of the garden, the enclosed wheat field
that he could see outside of his room and a few portraits of individuals at the asylum. This article features paintings made in and of the asylum, the grounds, or just outside the window of his room and the surrounding landscape.
Throughout Van Gogh's stay at Saint-Paul asylum he experienced periods of illness when he could not paint. When he was able to resume, painting provided solace and meaning for him. Nature seemed especially meaningful to him, trees, the landscape, even caterpillar
s as representative of the opportunity for transformation and budding flowers symbolizing the cycle of life. One of the more recognizable works of this period is The Irises
. Works of the interior of the hospital convey the isolation and sadness that he felt. From the window of his cell he saw an enclosed wheat field, the subject of many paintings that Van Gogh made from his room in Saint-Rémy. He was able to make but a few portraits while at Saint-Paul.
Within the grounds he also made paintings that were interpretations of some of his favorite paintings by artists that he admired. When he could leave the grounds of the asylum he made other works, such as Olive Trees
and landscapes of the local area.
Van Gogh's Starry Night over the Rhone
and The Irises
were exhibited at the Société des Artistes Indépendants
on 3 September 1889, and in January, 1890 six of Van Gogh's works were exhibited at the seventh exhibition of Les XX in Brussels
. Ironically, just as Van Gogh's work was gaining interest in the artistic community, he was not well enough to fully enjoy it.
, lies just outside of Saint-Rémy
in southern France
. A well-preserved Roman ruins known as les Antiques
, the most beautiful of which is le Mausolee, adjoins the property. Mont Gaussier and the Alpilles
range can be seen in some of Van Gogh's paintings.
in Arles in December 1888 in which van Gogh cut off part of his left ear he was hospitalized
in Arles twice over a few months. Although some, such as Johanna van Gogh
, Paul Signac
and posthumous speculation by doctors Doiteau & Leroy have said that van Gogh just removed part of his ear lobe and maybe a little more, art historian Rita Wildegans maintains that without exception, all of the witnesses from Arles said that he removed the entire left ear. In January 1889, he returned to the Yellow House where he was living, but spent the following month between hospital and home suffering from hallucinations and delusions that he was being poisoned. In March 1889, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople, who called him "fou roux" (the redheaded madman). Paul Signac visited him in hospital and Van Gogh was allowed home in his company. In April 1889, he moved into rooms owned by Dr. Félix 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." Finally in May 1889 he left Arles and traveled to the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
.
in the Provence
region of southern France. Saint-Paul, which began as an Augustine
monastery
in the 12th century, was converted into an asylum
in the 19th century. It 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.
Van Gogh was initially confined to the immediate asylum grounds and painted (without the bars) the world he saw from his room, such as ivy covered trees, lilacs, and irises of the garden. Through the open bars Van Gogh could also see an enclosed wheat field, subject of many paintings at Saint-Rémy. As he ventured outside of the asylum walls, he painted the wheat fields
, olive groves
, and cypress trees of the surrounding countryside, which he saw as "characteristic of Provence." Over the course of the year, he painted about 150 canvases.
The imposed regimen of asylum life gave Van Gogh a hard-won stability: "I feel happier here with my work than I could be outside. By staying here a good long time, I shall have learned regular habits and in the long run the result will be more order in my life." While his time at Saint-Rémy forced his management of his vices, such as coffee, alcohol, poor eating habits and periodic attempts to consume turpentine and paint, his stay was not ideal. He needed to obtain permission to leave the asylum grounds. The food was poor; he generally ate only bread and soup. His only apparent form of treatment were two hour baths twice a week. During his year there, Van Gogh would have periodic attacks, possibly due to a form of epilepsy
. By early 1890 van Gogh's attacks of illness worsened and he believed that his stay at the asylum was not helping to make him better. This led to his plans to move to Auvers-sur-Oise
just north of Paris
in May, 1890.
In a letter to Theo in May, 1889 he explains the sounds that travel through the quiet-seeming halls, "There is someone here who has been shouting and talking like me all the time for a fortnight. He thinks he hears voices and words in the echoes of the corridors, probably because the auditory nerve is diseased and over-sensitive, and in my case it was both sight and hearing at the same time, which is usual at the onset of epilepsy, according to what Dr. Félix Rey said one day."
of the setting for these paintings:
’s Paradou, great reeds, vines, ivy, fig trees, olive trees, pomegranates with lusty flowers of the brightest orange, hundred-year-old cypresses, ash trees and willows, rock oaks, half-demolished flights of steps, ogive windows in ruins, blocks of white rock covered in lichen and scattered fragments of collapsed walls here and there among the greenery." Van Gogh gave reference to Émile Zola
’s La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret
, an 1875 novel about a monk who finds solace in an overgrown garden where he is nursed back to health by a young woman.
For the first month of Van Gogh's stay he could not leave the grounds of the hospital, so he looked to the garden where he painted flowers and trees. To his brother, Theo
he wrote, "When you receive the canvases that I have done in the garden, you will see that I am not too melancholy here."
In the first week in October Van Gogh made several paintings, such as The Mulberry Tree, The Reaper, and Entrance to a Quarry. He also made a painting of trees in the courtyard that he seemed proud of; he wrote, "I have two views of the gardens and the asylum in which this place looks very attractive. I’ve tried to reconstruct it as it might have been, simplifying and accentuating the proud, unchanging nature of the pine trees and the clumps of cedar against the blue."
Van Gogh also made Flowering Rosebushes in the Asylum Garden also called Flowering Shrub that resides at Kröller-Müller Museum
, Otterlo, Netherlands (F1527).
Van Gogh may have given Pine Trees with Figure in the Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital to Doctor Joseph Peyron; his name is the first in the provenance
for the work.
Pine Trees and Dandelions includes "a pine trunk, pink and purple, and then the grass with some white flowers and dandelions, a little rose bush and some other tree trunks in the background right at the top of the canvas," Van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother in May, 1890.
Of the first of painting (F745), Van Gogh Museum comments, "The effect of light and shade created an almost abstract pattern, with small arcs of paint covering the entire surface of the canvas." The second (F746), also of undergrowth beneath trees, is made with small brushstrokes to create a blurred image that also shows the effect of light shining through the shaded trees.
Ivy, originally Le Lierre is a painting Van Gogh made May 1889. Van Gogh incorporated the first version in his selection
of works to be displayed at Les XX
, Brussels
, in 1890.
woodblock prints
due to its close-up views, large areas of bright color and irises appearing to overflow the borders of the frame. He considered this painting a study, which is probably why there are no known drawings for it, although Theo
, Van Gogh's brother, thought better of it and quickly submitted it to the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants
in September 1889. He wrote to Vincent of the exhibition: "[It] strikes the eye from afar. The Irises are a beautiful study full of air and life."
A single iris is the subject of the second painting, smartly posed in the center. Like rays of the sun, brush strokes radiate out from the plant. Iris, with one full bloom, may have been painted before Irises that was filled with blooms.
, holder of this painting, describes it, "Van Gogh depicted a lilac bush in the hospital gardens, the broken, separate brushstrokes and vibrant forms recalling the lessons of Impressionism
, yet with a spatial dynamism unknown to the Impressionists. This bush is full of powerful, vivid energy and dramatic expression. The modest natural motif is transformed by the master's temperament and the brilliance of his emotions. Embodied here in this fragment of an overgrown garden we find all of nature's life-giving forces. In rejecting Impressionism, Van Gogh created his own artistic language, expressing the artist's romantic, passionate and deeply dramatic perception of the world."
until her death in 1907.
asylum. As the end of his stay in Saint-Rémy and the days ahead in Auvers-sur-Oise neared, Van Gogh conveyed his optimism and enthusiasm by painting flowers. About the time that van Gogh painted this work, he wrote to his mother, "But for one's health, as you say, it is very necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing."
The National Gallery of Art
describes the painting, "The undulating ribbons of paint, applied in diagonal strokes, animate the canvas and play off the furled forms of flowers and leaves. Originally, the roses were pink—the color has faded—and would have created a contrast of complementary colors
with the green." The exuberant bouquets of roses is said to be one of Van Gogh's largest, most beautiful still life
paintings. Van Gogh made another painting of roses in Saint-Rémy, which is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York
.
and one of a moth
while at Saint-Rémy.
painting Long Grass with Butterflies, also called Meadow in the Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital, is a view of an abandoned garden with tall unkempt grass and weeds on the asylum grounds. The work was made towards the end of his stay in Saint-Rémy.
. The size of the moth and plants in the background pull the spectator into the work. The colors are vivid, consistent with Van Gogh's passion and emotional intensity. Van Gogh Museum's title for this work is Emperor Moth.
in New York City. Reproduced often, the painting is widely hailed as his magnum opus
.
" that he could see from his cell at Saint-Paul Hospital. From the studio room he could see a field of wheat, enclosed by a wall. Beyond that were the mountains from Arles. During his stay at the asylum he made about twelve paintings of the view of the enclosed wheat field and distant mountains. In May Van Gogh wrote to Theo, "Through the iron-barred window I see a square field of wheat in an enclosure, a perspective like Van Goyen, above which I see the morning sun rising in all its glory." The stone wall, like a picture frame, helped to display the changing colors of the wheat field.
range, can be seen from the streets of Saint-Remy. Van Gogh generally saw the Alpilles from his room or the grounds of Saint-Paul hospital. In Van Gogh's Le Mont Gaussier with the Mas de Saint-Paul the Alpilles are painted in yellow, green and purple.
Left of Mont Gaussier is the Montagne des Deux Trous. In van Gogh's painting of this hill its dark holes are visible about the "undulating olive trees."
While Van Gogh had few opportunities to make portraits, he completed at least three at Saint-Rémy.
Van Gogh describes Jeanne Trabuc as a "washed-out kind of a woman, and unhappy, resigned creature of little consequence and so insignificant that I have a great desire to paint this dusty blade of grade. I’ve chatted with her a few times when I was doing some olive trees behind their little house, and she told me that she didn’t think I was ill -- indeed you would say the same right now if you could see me working."
Van Gogh wrote of a portrait he began in October 1889, "At the moment I am working on a portrait of one of the patients here. It is odd that when you have spent some time with them and have got used to them, you no longer think of them as mad."
began to build in van Gogh's work:
Over this time, though, Van Gogh's health ebbed and flowed between periods of attacks, recovery and resumption of painting. In April, 1890, near the end of van Gogh's stay at Saint-Paul's hospital, Theo wrote to his sister and mother, "I am so please that Vincent’s work is being more appreciated. If he were fit I believe that there would be nothing for me to desire, but it appears that this is not to be."
The sale of Red Vineyard was the only sale of van Gogh's paintings made during his lifetime.
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
did when he was a self-admitted patient at the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-Geography:...
from May 1889 until May 1890. During much of his stay there he was confined to the grounds of the asylum, and he made paintings of the garden, the enclosed wheat field
The Wheat Field
The Wheat Field is a series of oil paintings executed by Vincent van Gogh in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. All of them depict the view Van Gogh had from the window of his bedroom on the top floor of the asylum: a field enclosed by stone walls just beneath his window and excluded from normal life by the...
that he could see outside of his room and a few portraits of individuals at the asylum. This article features paintings made in and of the asylum, the grounds, or just outside the window of his room and the surrounding landscape.
Throughout Van Gogh's stay at Saint-Paul asylum he experienced periods of illness when he could not paint. When he was able to resume, painting provided solace and meaning for him. Nature seemed especially meaningful to him, trees, the landscape, even caterpillar
Caterpillar
Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...
s as representative of the opportunity for transformation and budding flowers symbolizing the cycle of life. One of the more recognizable works of this period is The Irises
Irises (painting)
Irises is a painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Irises was painted while Vincent van Gogh was living at the asylum at Saint Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, in the last year before his death in 1890....
. Works of the interior of the hospital convey the isolation and sadness that he felt. From the window of his cell he saw an enclosed wheat field, the subject of many paintings that Van Gogh made from his room in Saint-Rémy. He was able to make but a few portraits while at Saint-Paul.
Within the grounds he also made paintings that were interpretations of some of his favorite paintings by artists that he admired. When he could leave the grounds of the asylum he made other works, such as Olive Trees
Olive Trees (Van Gogh series)
Vincent van Gogh painted at least 18 paintings of olive trees, mostly in Saint-Rémy in 1889. At his own request, he lived at an asylum there from May 1889 through May 1890 painting the gardens of the asylum and, when he had permission to venture outside its walls, nearby olive trees, cypresses and...
and landscapes of the local area.
Van Gogh's Starry Night over the Rhone
Starry Night Over the Rhone
Starry Night Over the Rhone is one of Vincent van Gogh's paintings of Arles at night; it was painted at a spot on the banks of river which was only a minute or two's walk from the Yellow House on the Place Lamartine which Van Gogh was renting at the time...
and The Irises
Irises (painting)
Irises is a painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Irises was painted while Vincent van Gogh was living at the asylum at Saint Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, in the last year before his death in 1890....
were exhibited at the Société des Artistes Indépendants
Société des Artistes Indépendants
—The Société des Artistes Indépendants formed in Paris in summer 1884 choosing the device "No jury nor awards" . Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac were among its founders...
on 3 September 1889, and in January, 1890 six of Van Gogh's works were exhibited at the seventh exhibition of Les XX in Brussels
Vincent van Gogh's display at Les XX, 1890
Vincent van Gogh's display at Les XX, 1890, in Brussels is an important testament to the recognition he received amongst avant-garde peers during his own lifetime. Participation in the annual exhibition of Les XX was for members and by invitation only...
. Ironically, just as Van Gogh's work was gaining interest in the artistic community, he was not well enough to fully enjoy it.
Saint-Rémy
Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, twelve miles northeast of ArlesArles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
, lies just outside of Saint-Rémy
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-Geography:...
in southern France
Southern France
Southern France , colloquially known as le Midi is defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean, and Italy...
. A well-preserved Roman ruins known as les Antiques
Glanum
Glanum was an oppidum, or fortified town, founded by a Celto-Ligurian people called the Salyens in the 6th century B.C.,. It was known for the healing power of its spring. It became a Roman city in Provence until its abandonment in 260 A.D....
, the most beautiful of which is le Mausolee, adjoins the property. Mont Gaussier and the Alpilles
Alpilles
The Chaîne des Alpilles is a small range of mountains in Provence, southern France, located about south of Avignon at approximately .-Geography:The range is an extension of the much larger Luberon range...
range can be seen in some of Van Gogh's paintings.
Events leading up to stay at the Saint-Paul hospital
Following the incident with Paul GauguinPaul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
in Arles in December 1888 in which van Gogh cut off part of his left ear he was hospitalized
Hospital in Arles (Van Gogh series)
Hospital at Arles is the subject of two paintings that Vincent van Gogh made of the hospital in which he stayed in December 1888 and again in January 1889. The hospital is located in Arles in southern France...
in Arles twice over a few months. Although some, such as Johanna van Gogh
Johanna van Gogh-Bonger
Johanna Gezina van Gogh-Bonger was the wife of Theo van Gogh, art dealer, and the sister-in-law of the painter Vincent van Gogh. After the death of Vincent and her husband she worked assiduously on editing the brothers' correspondence, producing the first volume in Dutch in 1914...
, Paul Signac
Paul Signac
Paul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...
and posthumous speculation by doctors Doiteau & Leroy have said that van Gogh just removed part of his ear lobe and maybe a little more, art historian Rita Wildegans maintains that without exception, all of the witnesses from Arles said that he removed the entire left ear. In January 1889, he returned to the Yellow House where he was living, but spent the following month between hospital and home suffering from hallucinations and delusions that he was being poisoned. In March 1889, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople, who called him "fou roux" (the redheaded madman). Paul Signac visited him in hospital and Van Gogh was allowed home in his company. In April 1889, he moved into rooms owned by Dr. Félix 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." Finally in May 1889 he left Arles and traveled to the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-Geography:...
.
In Saint-Paul Hospital
On May 8, 1889 van Gogh voluntarily entered the asylum of St. Paul near Saint-RémySaint-Rémy-de-Provence
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-Geography:...
in the Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
region of southern France. Saint-Paul, which began as an Augustine
Augustinians
The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...
monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
in the 12th century, was converted into an asylum
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
in the 19th century. It is located in an area of cornfields, vineyards and olive trees at the time run by a former naval doctor, Dr. Théophile Peyron
Théophile Peyron
Doctor Théophile Peyron was a French naval doctor, who ran the mental hospital of Saint-Paul-de Mausole in a former monastery just outside of Saint Rémy de Provence. Vincent van Gogh was one of his patients....
. Theo arranged for two small rooms—adjoining cells with barred windows. The second was to be used as a studio.
Van Gogh was initially confined to the immediate asylum grounds and painted (without the bars) the world he saw from his room, such as ivy covered trees, lilacs, and irises of the garden. Through the open bars Van Gogh could also see an enclosed wheat field, subject of many paintings at Saint-Rémy. As he ventured outside of the asylum walls, he painted the wheat fields
Wheat Fields (Van Gogh series)
Vincent van Gogh painted dozens of Wheat Fields , borne out of his religious studies and sermons, connection to nature, appreciation of manual laborers and desire to provide a means of offering comfort to others...
, olive groves
Olive Trees (Van Gogh series)
Vincent van Gogh painted at least 18 paintings of olive trees, mostly in Saint-Rémy in 1889. At his own request, he lived at an asylum there from May 1889 through May 1890 painting the gardens of the asylum and, when he had permission to venture outside its walls, nearby olive trees, cypresses and...
, and cypress trees of the surrounding countryside, which he saw as "characteristic of Provence." Over the course of the year, he painted about 150 canvases.
The imposed regimen of asylum life gave Van Gogh a hard-won stability: "I feel happier here with my work than I could be outside. By staying here a good long time, I shall have learned regular habits and in the long run the result will be more order in my life." While his time at Saint-Rémy forced his management of his vices, such as coffee, alcohol, poor eating habits and periodic attempts to consume turpentine and paint, his stay was not ideal. He needed to obtain permission to leave the asylum grounds. The food was poor; he generally ate only bread and soup. His only apparent form of treatment were two hour baths twice a week. During his year there, Van Gogh would have periodic attacks, possibly due to a form of epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
. By early 1890 van Gogh's attacks of illness worsened and he believed that his stay at the asylum was not helping to make him better. This led to his plans to move to Auvers-sur-Oise
Auvers-sur-Oise
Auvers-sur-Oise is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is associated with several famous artists, the most prominent being Vincent van Gogh.-History:...
just north of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in May, 1890.
The corridor
The view down the hallway of many arches is one of profound solitude. The use of contrasts creates greater tension. A lone person in the corridor appears lost, similar to the way Van Gogh was feeling. In March 1889 Van Gogh wrote to his brother that a signed petition from his neighbors [in Arles] designated him as unfit to live freely, "shut up for long days under lock and key and without warders in the isolation cell, without my culpability being proven or even provable."In a letter to Theo in May, 1889 he explains the sounds that travel through the quiet-seeming halls, "There is someone here who has been shouting and talking like me all the time for a fortnight. He thinks he hears voices and words in the echoes of the corridors, probably because the auditory nerve is diseased and over-sensitive, and in my case it was both sight and hearing at the same time, which is usual at the onset of epilepsy, according to what Dr. Félix Rey said one day."
Corner of Saint-Paul Hospital
Van Gogh completed two versions of the corner of Saint-Remy hospital gardens. Van Gogh was descriptive in a letter to Émile BernardÉmile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
of the setting for these paintings:
"A view of the garden of the asylum where I am, on the right a gray terrace, a section the house, some rosebushes that have lost their flowers; on the left, the earth of the garden – red ochre – earth burnt by the sun, covered in fallen pine twigs. This edge of the garden is planted with large pines with red ochre trunks and branches, with green foliage saddened by a mixture of black. These tall trees stand out against an evening sky streaked with violet against a yellow background. High up, the yellow turns to pink, turns to green. A wall – red ocher again – blocks the view, and there’s nothing above it but a violet and yellow ochre hill. Now, the first tree is an enormous trunk, but struck by lightening and sawn off. A side branch, thrusts up very high, however, and falls down again in an avalanche of dark green twigs. This dark giant – like a proud man brought low – contrasts, when seen as the character of a living being, with the pale smile of the last rose on the bush, which is fading in front of him. Under the trees, empty stone benches, dark box. The sky is reflected yellow in a puddle after the rain. A ray of sun - the last glimmer - exalts the dark ocher to orange - small dark figures prowl here and there between the trunks."
"You’ll understand that this combination of red ochre, of green saddened with grey, of black lines that define the outlines, this gives rise a little to the feeling of anxiety from which some of my companions in misfortune often suffer, and which is called 'seeing red'." And what’s more, the motif of the great tree struck by lightning, the sickly pink and green smile of the last flower of autumn, confirms this idea.
The garden
One year before coming to Saint-Rémy Van Gogh wrote of a visit to an old garden, which shed light both into his interest in gardens and connection to their restorative effect: "If it had been bigger it would have made me think of ZolaÉmile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
’s Paradou, great reeds, vines, ivy, fig trees, olive trees, pomegranates with lusty flowers of the brightest orange, hundred-year-old cypresses, ash trees and willows, rock oaks, half-demolished flights of steps, ogive windows in ruins, blocks of white rock covered in lichen and scattered fragments of collapsed walls here and there among the greenery." Van Gogh gave reference to Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
’s La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret
La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret
La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret is the fifth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Viciously anticlerical in tone, it follows on from the horrific events at the end of La Conquête de Plassans, focussing this time on a remote Provençal backwater village.The plot centres on the...
, an 1875 novel about a monk who finds solace in an overgrown garden where he is nursed back to health by a young woman.
For the first month of Van Gogh's stay he could not leave the grounds of the hospital, so he looked to the garden where he painted flowers and trees. To his brother, Theo
Theo van Gogh (art dealer)
Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting...
he wrote, "When you receive the canvases that I have done in the garden, you will see that I am not too melancholy here."
In the first week in October Van Gogh made several paintings, such as The Mulberry Tree, The Reaper, and Entrance to a Quarry. He also made a painting of trees in the courtyard that he seemed proud of; he wrote, "I have two views of the gardens and the asylum in which this place looks very attractive. I’ve tried to reconstruct it as it might have been, simplifying and accentuating the proud, unchanging nature of the pine trees and the clumps of cedar against the blue."
Van Gogh also made Flowering Rosebushes in the Asylum Garden also called Flowering Shrub that resides at Kröller-Müller Museum
Kröller-Müller Museum
The Kröller-Müller Museum is an art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands.-Museum:...
, Otterlo, Netherlands (F1527).
Pine trees
Although December was a cold month, van Gogh worked in the garden producing studies of pine trees in a storm and other work.Van Gogh may have given Pine Trees with Figure in the Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital to Doctor Joseph Peyron; his name is the first in the provenance
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...
for the work.
Pine Trees and Dandelions includes "a pine trunk, pink and purple, and then the grass with some white flowers and dandelions, a little rose bush and some other tree trunks in the background right at the top of the canvas," Van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother in May, 1890.
Undergrowth
Van Gogh explored the grounds of the asylum where he found an overgrown garden. He wrote, "since I have been here, I have had enough work with the overgrown garden with its large pine trees, under which there grows tall and poorly-tended grass, mixed with all kinds of periwinkle." The paintings are of growth below ivy covered trees.Of the first of painting (F745), Van Gogh Museum comments, "The effect of light and shade created an almost abstract pattern, with small arcs of paint covering the entire surface of the canvas." The second (F746), also of undergrowth beneath trees, is made with small brushstrokes to create a blurred image that also shows the effect of light shining through the shaded trees.
Ivy, originally Le Lierre is a painting Van Gogh made May 1889. Van Gogh incorporated the first version in his selection
Vincent van Gogh's display at Les XX, 1890
Vincent van Gogh's display at Les XX, 1890, in Brussels is an important testament to the recognition he received amongst avant-garde peers during his own lifetime. Participation in the annual exhibition of Les XX was for members and by invitation only...
of works to be displayed at Les XX
Les XX
Les XX was a group of twenty Belgian painters, designers and sculptors, formed in 1883 by the Brussels lawyer, publisher, and entrepreneur Octave Maus. For ten years 'Les Vingt' , as they called themselves, held an annual exhibition of their art; each year twenty international artists were also...
, Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, in 1890.
Flowers
As the end of his stay in Saint-Rémy and the days ahead in Auvers-sur-Oise neared, van Gogh conveyed his optimism and enthusiasm by painting flowers. About the time that Van Gogh painted this work, he wrote to his mother, "But for one's health, as you say, it is very necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing." To his sister Wil he wrote, "The last days in Saint-Rémy I worked like a madman. Great bouquets of flowers, violet-colored irises, great bouquets of roses."Irises
Van Gogh made Irises from the irises in the asylum's garden. The painting seems influenced by Japanese ukiyo-eUkiyo-e
' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...
woodblock prints
Woodblock printing
Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper....
due to its close-up views, large areas of bright color and irises appearing to overflow the borders of the frame. He considered this painting a study, which is probably why there are no known drawings for it, although Theo
Theo van Gogh (art dealer)
Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting...
, Van Gogh's brother, thought better of it and quickly submitted it to the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants
Société des Artistes Indépendants
—The Société des Artistes Indépendants formed in Paris in summer 1884 choosing the device "No jury nor awards" . Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac were among its founders...
in September 1889. He wrote to Vincent of the exhibition: "[It] strikes the eye from afar. The Irises are a beautiful study full of air and life."
A single iris is the subject of the second painting, smartly posed in the center. Like rays of the sun, brush strokes radiate out from the plant. Iris, with one full bloom, may have been painted before Irises that was filled with blooms.
Lilacs
When Van Gogh worked on the Irises, he was also working on Lilacs, both from the garden. The Hermitage MuseumHermitage Museum
The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
, holder of this painting, describes it, "Van Gogh depicted a lilac bush in the hospital gardens, the broken, separate brushstrokes and vibrant forms recalling the lessons of Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, yet with a spatial dynamism unknown to the Impressionists. This bush is full of powerful, vivid energy and dramatic expression. The modest natural motif is transformed by the master's temperament and the brilliance of his emotions. Embodied here in this fragment of an overgrown garden we find all of nature's life-giving forces. In rejecting Impressionism, Van Gogh created his own artistic language, expressing the artist's romantic, passionate and deeply dramatic perception of the world."
Floral still life
Van Gogh had not painted still life during his stay at Saint-Rémy until the very last month of his year-long stay when he painted four striking bouquets of irises and roses. To his sister Wil he wrote, "The last days in Saint-Rémy I worked like a madman. Great bouquets of flowers, violet-colored irises, great bouquets of roses." Van Gogh's mother owned both upright versions of the irises and roses paintings held by the Metropolitan Museum of ArtMetropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
until her death in 1907.
Vase with Irises
In one of the iris paintings he places the large bunch of violet irises against a harmonious pink background. Unfortunately, over time, the pink background has faded to almost white. In the other, he use a contrasting yellow background.Vase with Roses
Van Gogh painted Still Life: Vase with Pink Roses shortly before his release from the Saint-RémySaint-Rémy-de-Provence
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-Geography:...
asylum. As the end of his stay in Saint-Rémy and the days ahead in Auvers-sur-Oise neared, Van Gogh conveyed his optimism and enthusiasm by painting flowers. About the time that van Gogh painted this work, he wrote to his mother, "But for one's health, as you say, it is very necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing."
The National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
describes the painting, "The undulating ribbons of paint, applied in diagonal strokes, animate the canvas and play off the furled forms of flowers and leaves. Originally, the roses were pink—the color has faded—and would have created a contrast of complementary colors
Complementary color
Complementary colors are pairs of colors that are of “opposite” hue in some color model. The exact hue “complementary” to a given hue depends on the model in question, and perceptually uniform, additive, and subtractive color models, for example, have differing complements for any given color.-...
with the green." The exuberant bouquets of roses is said to be one of Van Gogh's largest, most beautiful still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
paintings. Van Gogh made another painting of roses in Saint-Rémy, which is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Butterflies
Van Gogh made at least two paintings of butterfliesButterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
and one of a moth
Moth
A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...
while at Saint-Rémy.
Poppies and Butterflies
Debra Mancoff, author of Van Gogh's Flowers, described Poppies and Butterflies: "vivid red poppies and the pale yellow butterflies float on the surface of twisting dark stems and nodding buds, all against a yellow-gold background. Although composed of natural motifs, van Gogh's layering of pattern in Butterflies and Poppies suggests a decorative quality like that of a textile or a screen." Mancoff compared this study to the Japanese prints he admired.Long Grass with Butterflies
London's National GalleryNational gallery
The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
painting Long Grass with Butterflies, also called Meadow in the Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital, is a view of an abandoned garden with tall unkempt grass and weeds on the asylum grounds. The work was made towards the end of his stay in Saint-Rémy.
Green Peacock Moth
In May 1889 Van Gogh began work on Green Peacock Moth which he self-titled Death's Head Moth. The moth, called death's head, is a rarely seen nocturnal moth. He described the large moth's colors "of amazing distinction, black, grey, cloudy white tinged with carmine or vaguely shading off into olive green." Behind the moth is a background of Lords-and-LadiesArum maculatum
Arum maculatum is a common woodland plant species of the Araceae family. It is widespread across temperate northern Europe and is known by an abundance of common names including Wild arum, Lords and Ladies, Devils and Angels, Cows and Bulls, Cuckoo-Pint, Adam and Eve, Bobbins, Naked Boys,...
. The size of the moth and plants in the background pull the spectator into the work. The colors are vivid, consistent with Van Gogh's passion and emotional intensity. Van Gogh Museum's title for this work is Emperor Moth.
The Starry Night
The Starry Night depicts the view outside his sanitarium room window at night, although it was painted from memory during the day. Since 1941 it has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York City. Reproduced often, the painting is widely hailed as his magnum opus
Magnum opus
Magnum opus , from the Latin meaning "great work", refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of a writer, artist, or composer.-Related terms:Sometimes the term magnum opus is used to refer to simply "a great work" rather than "the...
.
"The Wheat Field"
Van Gogh worked on a group of paintings "The Wheat FieldThe Wheat Field
The Wheat Field is a series of oil paintings executed by Vincent van Gogh in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. All of them depict the view Van Gogh had from the window of his bedroom on the top floor of the asylum: a field enclosed by stone walls just beneath his window and excluded from normal life by the...
" that he could see from his cell at Saint-Paul Hospital. From the studio room he could see a field of wheat, enclosed by a wall. Beyond that were the mountains from Arles. During his stay at the asylum he made about twelve paintings of the view of the enclosed wheat field and distant mountains. In May Van Gogh wrote to Theo, "Through the iron-barred window I see a square field of wheat in an enclosure, a perspective like Van Goyen, above which I see the morning sun rising in all its glory." The stone wall, like a picture frame, helped to display the changing colors of the wheat field.
Mount Gaussier with the house of Saint-Paul
Mont Gaussier, the dominant hill of the AlpillesAlpilles
The Chaîne des Alpilles is a small range of mountains in Provence, southern France, located about south of Avignon at approximately .-Geography:The range is an extension of the much larger Luberon range...
range, can be seen from the streets of Saint-Remy. Van Gogh generally saw the Alpilles from his room or the grounds of Saint-Paul hospital. In Van Gogh's Le Mont Gaussier with the Mas de Saint-Paul the Alpilles are painted in yellow, green and purple.
Left of Mont Gaussier is the Montagne des Deux Trous. In van Gogh's painting of this hill its dark holes are visible about the "undulating olive trees."
Portraits
Van Gogh, known for his landscapes, seemed to find painting portraits his greatest ambition. 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."While Van Gogh had few opportunities to make portraits, he completed at least three at Saint-Rémy.
François and Jeanne Trabuc
François Trabuc, who was the chief orderly at Saint-Paul, and his wife, Jeanne both sat for van Gogh. François Trabuc had a look of "contemplative calm" which van Gogh found interesting in spite of the misery he had witness at Saint-Paul and a Marseille hospital during outbreaks of cholera. He wrote to Theo of Trabuc’s character, a military presence and "small keen black eyes". If it were not for his intelligence and kindness, his eyes could seem like that of a bird of prey.Van Gogh describes Jeanne Trabuc as a "washed-out kind of a woman, and unhappy, resigned creature of little consequence and so insignificant that I have a great desire to paint this dusty blade of grade. I’ve chatted with her a few times when I was doing some olive trees behind their little house, and she told me that she didn’t think I was ill -- indeed you would say the same right now if you could see me working."
Portrait of a patient
While in Saint-Paul, Van Gogh wrote of other patients and their support for one another, "Though here there are some patients very seriously ill, the fear and horror of madness that I used to have has already lessened a great deal. And though here you continually hear terrible cries and howls like beasts in a menagerie, in spite of that people get to know each other very well and help each other when their attacks come on."Van Gogh wrote of a portrait he began in October 1889, "At the moment I am working on a portrait of one of the patients here. It is odd that when you have spent some time with them and have got used to them, you no longer think of them as mad."
Interest in van Gogh's work builds
While in Saint-Remy interestPosthumous fame of Vincent van Gogh
The fame of Vincent van Gogh began to spread in France and Belgium during the last year of his life, and in the years after his death in the Netherlands and Germany. His friendship with his younger brother Theo was documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards...
began to build in van Gogh's work:
- Theo, Van Gogh's brother, wrote in July 1889, that CamilleCamille PissarroCamille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
and Lucien Pissarro, Père TanguyPortrait of Père TanguyPortrait of Père Tanguy, painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1887, is one of his three paintings of Julien Tanguy. The three works demonstrate a progression in Van Gogh's artistic style after his arrival in Paris. The first is somber, and formed from a simple composition. The second introduces Van...
, Erik Theodor WerenskioldErik WerenskioldErik Theodor Werenskiold was a Norwegian painter and illustrator. He is especially known for his drawings for the...
and Octave MausOctave MausOctave Maus was a Belgian art critic, writer, and lawyer.Maus worked with fellow writer/lawyer Edmond Picard, and they together with Victor Arnould and Eugène Robert founded the weekly L'Art moderne in 1881....
, secretary of the Les XX group in Brussels, had seen the paintings that he'd made in southern France. On Van Gogh's behalf, Theo accepted an offer from Maus to exhibit Van Gogh's work at the Les XXLes XXLes XX was a group of twenty Belgian painters, designers and sculptors, formed in 1883 by the Brussels lawyer, publisher, and entrepreneur Octave Maus. For ten years 'Les Vingt' , as they called themselves, held an annual exhibition of their art; each year twenty international artists were also...
group's upcoming exhibition. - Van Gogh's Starry Night over the RhoneStarry Night Over the RhoneStarry Night Over the Rhone is one of Vincent van Gogh's paintings of Arles at night; it was painted at a spot on the banks of river which was only a minute or two's walk from the Yellow House on the Place Lamartine which Van Gogh was renting at the time...
and The IrisesIrises (painting)Irises is a painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Irises was painted while Vincent van Gogh was living at the asylum at Saint Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, in the last year before his death in 1890....
were exhibited at the Société des Artistes IndépendantsSociété des Artistes Indépendants—The Société des Artistes Indépendants formed in Paris in summer 1884 choosing the device "No jury nor awards" . Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac were among its founders...
on the third of September. - In January, 1890 six of Van Gogh's works were exhibited at the seventh exhibition of Les XX in Brussels along with, among others, Paul CézannePaul CézannePaul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
, Camille Pissaro, Pierre-Auguste RenoirPierre-Auguste RenoirPierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
, Paul SignacPaul SignacPaul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...
and Henri de Toulouse-LautrecHenri de Toulouse-LautrecHenri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...
. Van Gogh's painting The Red VineyardThe Red VineyardThe Red Vineyard is an oil painting by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, executed on a privately-primed Toile de 30 piece of burlap in early November 1888...
was sold to artist Anna BochAnna BochAnna Rosalie Boch was a Belgian painter, born in Saint-Vaast, Hainaut. Anna Boch died in Ixelles in 1936 and is interred there in the Ixelles Cemetery, Brussels, Belgium.-Artistic style:...
at the exhibition for 400 francs. - In the same month an article is published "Les Isole: Vincent van Gogh" in the "Mercure de FranceMercure de FranceThe Mercure de France was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group....
". - Ten of Van Gogh's works were presented at the March, 1890 Société des Artistes Indépendants. Paul GauguinPaul GauguinEugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
, Claude MonetClaude MonetClaude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
and Pissaro were quite impressed with his works.
Over this time, though, Van Gogh's health ebbed and flowed between periods of attacks, recovery and resumption of painting. In April, 1890, near the end of van Gogh's stay at Saint-Paul's hospital, Theo wrote to his sister and mother, "I am so please that Vincent’s work is being more appreciated. If he were fit I believe that there would be nothing for me to desire, but it appears that this is not to be."
The sale of Red Vineyard was the only sale of van Gogh's paintings made during his lifetime.