View of the Asylum and the Chapel at Saint Remy de Provence

At the end of the 19th century, the former Augustinian monastery of Saint Paul de Mausole, dating back to the 12th century, had been converted into an asylum for psychiatric patients.

Some eleven years ago, I wrote an article on van Gogh’s stay in the Asylum. Today I revisit the asylum to present the only painting that van Gogh painted from the outside, in plain air, an asylum attendant keeping watch on the artist while he worked [1].

Van Gogh’s statue at the entrance of the Monastery Complex. Photo Credit @ Nikos Moropoulos

The author and journalist Martin Bailey, an expert on Van Gogh’s life, has traced the admissions register and other records from Saint-Paul de Mausole, a small asylum on the outskirts of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, for the period when Van Gogh was admitted as a private patient, a stay paid for by his brother Theo. The register shows Vincent van Gogh, 36, from Arles but born in the Netherlands, was admitted on 8 May 1889. No one visited van Gogh during his stay. Although Arles is only 20 km away from the asylum, none of his friends there made the short journey. His brother Theo, on the other hand, claimed in his letters that his wife was expecting and therefore could not be away from Paris. [2]

Van Gogh was released on 16 May 1890, at his own request. The final medical note described Van Gogh as “cured”. He travelled to northern France to begin again, but after a final burst of creativity, he died within two months – 36 hours after shooting himself in the stomach while out painting in the midsummer fields.[2]