Blog Post Number 4- Saint Remy De Provence

On May the 8th Van Gogh assisted with a carer committed himself to the hospital of Saint Remy, which was a monastery at the time which is 20miles from Arles. During his stay, the clinic and the gardens is mostly were he painted. He made some paintings of the interior of the hospital, including Vestibule of the Asylum and Saint-Remy. Some of the work from this time is characterized by swirls, which is shown in one of his best-known paintings The Starry Night. He was able to go on short supervised walks where he could paint cypresses and olive trees, including Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background, Cypresses, Cornfield with Cypresses, Country road in Provence by Night. With barely no access to the world, he didn't have much to paint so he worked on interpretations of other artists paintings. 
That September, he produced a two more versions of Bedroom in Arles, and in February 1890 painted four portraits of L'Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux), based on a charcoal sketch Gauguin had made when Madame Ginoux sat for both artists at the beginning of November 1888.
In February 1890, following the birth of his nephew Vincent Willem, he wrote in a letter to his mother, that he "started right away to make a picture for him, to hang in their bedroom, big branches of white almond blossom against a blue sky". He left Saint remy De Provence in May 1890, to be closer to Dr Paul Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise just outside Paris.

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