Le Jardin

Vincent Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888. He was full of hope, as he planned to create a utopian artists’ colony. His health was better than it had been and he made friends. It was here that he painted many of his most well known pictures, such as The Sunflowers and The Yellow House. He worked hard and produced around 200 paintings and 100 drawings. Then Gauguin was persuaded to come and join him and stayed with him in the Yellow House.

But, by December of the same year, Van Gogh’s health had deteriorated. He was plagued by fits of madness and rowed with Gauguin. His left ear was cut off. No one knows the full story around that event, but Van Gogh was hospitalised and Gauguin abandoned him.
 
This is the garden of the hospital where he stayed. He painted it several times and here I have tried to reproduce what he saw. Most people take pictures from the ground, but I soon realised that one needed to be above to really see it. I managed to find the stairs and took the picture from the balcony. The extra picture is a print of Van Gogh’s actual painting.
   
We spent a lovely day in Arles, despite arriving by accident on the one day a month that there is a huge brocante – made parking a little tricky. We visited the Roman Amphitheatre – amazing place (this was going to be my blip, but in the end I favoured the garden). We found a wonderful place for lunch – down an alley from the main tourist square (where the best places usually are!). We visited the new Gallery, Fondation Vincent Van Gogh and then tried to locate some of the places where Van Gogh painted some of his most famous works – a very touristy thing to do, but I’m glad we found the garden anyway.