The madhouse garden in Saint-Rémy
|
| The madhouse garden in Saint-Rémy |
|---|
| Vincent van Gogh , 1889 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 73.1 × 92 cm |
| Folkwang Museum, Essen |
The Madhouse Garden in Saint-Rémy is a painting by Vincent van Gogh . It was created in the autumn and winter of 1889 in the garden of the insane asylum to which Vincent van Gogh volunteered in May 1889. The painting is now in the Folkwang Museum in Essen .
Image content
The painting shows the walled garden of the institution. The central object is the mighty pine tree in the sanatorium's garden, which Vincent van Gogh himself described as a “ gloomy giant ” and a “ proud vanquished ”. In a letter to Émil Bernard , Vincent van Gogh reported that the pine tree had been struck by lightning and that the largest branch of the tree had to be cut off. The injured trunk is the center of the picture. A side branch still protrudes from the trunk towards the sky. In the background of the painting there are more trees, so that twisted branches dominate the picture. In contrast to the lively, moving branches, there is the garden floor, depicted in heavy red tones, and the wall that surrounds the sanatorium. There are three figures on the painting. They look tiny compared to the trees.
Background to the creation
In December 1888 Vincent van Gogh lost part of his left ear after a dispute with Paul Gauguin under circumstances that were not completely clear. The incident is considered to be the first manifestation of a disease that was then, probably incorrectly, diagnosed as epilepsy . He was treated in Arles hospital for about two weeks because of the blood loss; in February 1889, another attack made it necessary to stay in hospital for several days. As soon as he was released, he was again interned in the hospital because of a petition from citizens who feared his " scary " behavior. This forced internment was lifted in April. Since the painter did not yet trust himself to live alone - possibly also in order not to burden his brother, who had recently married, too much - he decided to move to the nearby mental hospital Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence . The privately run mental hospital in Saint-Rémy, where the painter arrived on May 8th, was housed in a former monastery from the 12th century. He was allowed to paint there as a kind of therapy. In July he suffered a severe seizure during which he (as well as during another seizure later that year) tried to swallow poisonous paints in what could possibly be considered a suicide attempt. After that he did not dare leave the house for weeks, but painted several self-portraits. He also turned a number of paintings that he valued and owned as black and white reproductions - mainly by Delacroix and Millet - into color paintings. In October 1889, van Gogh ventured out of the prison walls for the first time. Olive groves and pine trees were one of the central themes of his art at this time.
literature
- Sabine Schulze (Ed.): Gardens: Order - Inspiration - Luck , Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main & Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 2006, ISBN 978-3-7757-1870-7
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schulze et al., P. 252
- ↑ See, for example, Ingo F. Walther / Rainer Metzger: Vincent van Gogh - Complete Paintings , p. 463.
- ↑ Rita Wildegans: Van Gogh's ear. A corpusculum as a corpus delicti