View of the Asylum and Chapel of Saint-Rémy
The Saint-Paul asylum near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, its chapel spire among pines — the hospital where Van Gogh spent a year.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
The painting depicts a real landscape or cityscape. The precise viewpoint the artist used may be unknown, so the marker shows the general area.
View of the Asylum and Chapel of Saint-Rémy — at a glance
- Artist
- Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
- Year
- 1889
- Movement
- Post-Impressionism
- Place
- Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France
- Viewpoint
- The asylum grounds toward the buildings and chapel — the site still functions and has a Van Gogh circuit
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 45 × 60 cm
- Now at
- Private collection
Overview
This landscape by Vincent van Gogh, painted in October 1889, shows the buildings of the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence from the surrounding grounds: the long ranges of the former monastery, the pointed spire of the Romanesque chapel, tall dark pines, and rough ground with a figure. It is oil on canvas, about 45 by 60 cm; it was long in the collection of the actress Elizabeth Taylor and is privately held.
Where was View of the Asylum and Chapel of Saint-Rémy painted?
Scholarship Saint-Paul-de-Mausole is a former Augustinian monastery a short walk south of the town of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, in the Alpilles hills, that had become a private mental hospital. Van Gogh admitted himself there in May 1889 and stayed a year, painting the garden, the wheatfields, the olive groves and the buildings. The site still functions as a psychiatric clinic and also has a Van Gogh visitor circuit — his room, the cloister and the chapel can be seen — so the buildings in the picture are unchanged and identifiable, though the immediate grounds have been landscaped.
What is in the painting?
The pale stone buildings run across the middle distance, the chapel's stone spire rising among them. In front, a slope of rough grass and low plants, a wall, and dark columnar pines that break the roofline. A single figure stands on the path. The sky is streaked; the colour is autumnal — ochre, olive, blue-green — the brushwork swirling in the foliage.
Look closely
The chapel spire
The pointed stone spire of the Romanesque chapel rises among the long asylum ranges.
The columnar pines
Tall dark pines break the roofline with strong verticals.
The lone figure
A single person stands on the path in the rough foreground — scale, and a note of confinement.
Analysis
Composition and technique
The asylum ranges laid horizontally in the middle distance, screened and broken by vertical pines.
Scholarship Van Gogh sets the long low institution against the strong verticals of the pines and the chapel spire, and works the foreground and trees in restless, curling strokes. The lone figure gives scale and a note of confinement.
History & provenance
The painting was owned by Elizabeth Taylor from 1963 and remains in private hands.
Sources
- Van Gogh Museum / catalogue raisonné — ‘View of the Asylum and Chapel of Saint-Rémy’ (1889)
- Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence — the Van Gogh circuit
Related paintings
The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at Saint-Rémy)
1889
Van Gogh in the town of Saint-Rémy itself, from the same asylum year.
The Church at Auvers
1890
Van Gogh's other ‘institution among trees’, painted the following summer at Auvers.
Les Alyscamps
1888
Van Gogh's avenue at Arles, from just before the asylum year.
More by Vincent van Gogh
Café Terrace at Night
The Church at Auvers
Starry Night Over the Rhone
Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin
Also connected to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at Saint-Rémy)
