Talk:Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy (Van Gogh series)

Ward in Arles

Is the ward in Arles painting from his hospital stay in Arles? Or the one in Saint-Remy? (I've sometimes seen the hospital referred to as in Arles, so it isn't an incredibly straightforward question.)

When I started researching his letters for paintings for this article van Gogh said to his sister on April 30, while in Arles and with plans to go to Saint-Remy that he was painting a picture of a ward: "Notwithstanding this I am working, and have just finished two pictures of the hospital, one of a ward, a very long ward, with rows of beds with white curtains, in which some figures of patients are moving. The walls, the ceiling with big beams, all in white, lilac-white or green-white. Here and there a window with a pink or bright green curtain. The floor paved with red bricks. At the end a door with a crucifix over it. It is all very, very simple. And then, as a pendant, the inner court. It is an arcaded gallery like those one finds in Arab buildings, all white-washed. In front of those galleries an antique garden with a pond in the middle, and eight flower beds, forget-me-nots, Christmas roses, anemones, ranunculus, wallflowers, daisies, and so on. And under the gallery orange trees and oleander."

Thanks so much!--CaroleHenson (talk) 00:21, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Update, there's also a letter from Saint-Remy in October where he says he's working on painting a ward.--CaroleHenson (talk) 00:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure now from his letters and the following book that the ward is of the hospital in Arles, but it sounds like he finished the painting at Saint-Remy. The Medicine in Art book p. 158 calls out this as a ward in Arles. I greatly appreciate the other additional images!! I anyone disagrees, though, let me know and I'll pop it back in.--CaroleHenson (talk)

Sounds like he painted it - the painting of the ward - in two separate places. Arles and then Saint-Remy...Modernist (talk) 03:37, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but in both cases it sounds like the ward in Arles. At least that's the way I read it. What do you think?--CaroleHenson (talk) 05:01, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Leave the image out until there is a definitive identification tying it to Saint-Remy...Modernist (talk) 05:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, as I continue researching for info for the article over the next several days, I may stumble upon it. Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 06:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Garden of the Hospital in Arles

Garden of the Hospital in Arles

Ward in the Hospital in Arles

Hi Carole, this one too - like the hospital ward in Arles is the wrong place, and we probably should have both images in a Hospital in Arles section [1]...

Great, thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 18:26, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't look like the romanesque cloister at St-Remy to me! --PL (talk) 15:30, 7 July 2014 (UTC)