After the breakdown that led him to cut off part of his left ear in Arles, Vincent van Gogh checked himself into the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. There, in a cell with barred windows, he would paint some of his most celebrated works, including versions of 'The Starry Night,' turning confinement into one of the most productive periods of his career.
Vincent van Gogh arrived at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence as a voluntary patient, still reeling from the psychotic episode in December 1888 that led him to sever part of his own ear. He was given two small rooms, one to sleep in and one to use as a studio, and permitted supervised trips outside the walls to paint the surrounding olive groves and cypress trees.
Despite recurring attacks of what doctors then diagnosed variably as epilepsy or a form of psychosis, Van Gogh worked with astonishing intensity during his year at the asylum. He produced roughly 150 paintings, including 'The Starry Night,' 'Irises,' and numerous studies of the walled garden he could see from his window. He described painting as the only thing that kept him from 'going under completely.'
His brother Theo, an art dealer in Paris, financed the stay and received a steady stream of letters describing both suffering and startling clarity. Vincent left the asylum in May 1890, moving to Auvers-sur-Oise, where he would die by suicide just two months later, at age 37, having sold only a handful of paintings in his lifetime.
Key people: Vincent van Gogh, Theo van Gogh