For nearly a year of his life, Vincent Van Gogh stayed at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole mental hospital in Saint-Remy, undergoing treatment, and painting when he could.
Looking through my pictures from our walk to and around the hospital, I realized I could recognize some of his images, and some of the feeling in them; if I make the trip again, I might try to make a closer connection, but here are a small selection.
The room, by the way, is not what it seems: although it’s an accurate view of the room he occupied at the hospital, he made the painting of his remarkably similar room in Arles.
Vincent Van Gogh is my all-time favorite painter. Extremely gifted people sometimes are perceived and act as being on the fringes of mental instability. I really didn’t appreciate his painting until I saw the originals which just are incredible when compared to 2D images. I did trace some of his footstep in Arles (which is a fantastic place to travel) and I was extremely disappointed when our bus tour to the Netherlands skipped the Van Gogh museum because we ran behind schedule.
George, that was a real loss! We were there again last spring, for the first time in ten years, and it was a wonderful day…