Pine Trees with Figure in the Garden of Saint Paul Hospital

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Pine Trees with Figure in the Garden of Saint Paul Hospital: Vincent van Gogh

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Vincent van Gogh Oil Painting - Pine Trees with Figure in the Garden of Saint Paul Hospital

Keywords: Pine, Trees, Figure, Garden, Saint, Paul, Hospital

Work Overview: Hospital at Saint-Rémy-de -Provence

Artist Vincent van Gogh
Year 1889
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 58 cm × 45 cm (23 in × 18 in)
Location Musée d'Orsay, Paris

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-de-Provence, since renamed the Clinique Van Gogh, 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 his room and a few portraits of individuals at the asylum. During his stay at Saint-Paul asylum, Van Gogh 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 caterpillars 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 made from his room. 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 (Van Gogh series) 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 his works were exhibited at the seventh exhibition of Les XX in Brussels. Sadly, just as Van Gogh's work was gaining interest in the artistic community, he was not well enough to fully enjoy it.

Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, twelve miles northeast of Arles, lies just outside Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in southern France. Mentioned on several occasions by Nostradamus, who was born nearby and knew it a Franciscan convent,[1] it was originally an Augustinian priory dating from the 12th century, and has a particularly beautiful cloister.[2] A well-preserved set of Roman ruins known as les Antiques, the most beautiful of which is le Mausolee, adjoins the property, and forms part of the ancient Graeco-Roman city of Glanum. Mont Gaussier, which overlooks the site, and the Alpilles range can be seen in some of Van Gogh's paintings.

Following the incident with Paul Gauguin 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,[4] art historian Rita Wildegans maintains that without exception, all of the witnesses from Arles said that he removed the entire left ear.[5] 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.[6][7] 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.

On May 8, 1889 van Gogh voluntarily entered the asylum[9] of St. Paul[10] near Saint-Rémy in the Provence region of southern France.[11] Saint-Paul, which began as an Augustine monastery in the 12th century, was converted into an asylum in the 19th century.[3] 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.[12]

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.[9][13] Through the open bars Van Gogh could also see an enclosed wheat field, subject of many paintings at Saint-Rémy.[14] As he ventured outside of the asylum walls, he painted the wheat fields, olive groves, and cypress trees of the surrounding countryside,[13] which he saw as "characteristic of Provence." Over the course of the year, he painted about 150 canvases.[9]

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."[13] 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.[15] 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.[16]

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."[17]

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."

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