The sad Arles hospital

After lunch, we headed back into the town, going to L’Espace Van Gogh, the hospital where Van Gogh stayed on and off from December 24, 1888 to early May 1889 as a result of the infamous ear incident. Van Gogh was brought here, suffering from blood loss and hallucinations, where he taken in by Dr. Felix Rey.

The hospital courtyard as Van Gogh saw it.

Most people know this building from the painting Van Gogh did of the interior courtyard, and indeed today, that space is maintained much as it was in his painting.

Here is the courtyard to commemorate the guy they had thrown out of town.

But, all in all, a sadness hung over this place. It’s as if the town doesn’t really know what to do with this building and feels some obligation to maintain it because tourists expect it. Yet, aside from the courtyard, there isn’t much to see or do. There’s no museum, no paintings, you can’t see the room he stayed in, if they even know which one it was. About all you can do is visit a small gift shop with post cards, posters and other Van Gogh souvenirs. Some of the spaces are now social services offices, but most of them are empty.

This little shop just added to the gloom.

And once more it seemed ironic that another building was named after a man who was mostly unwelcome while he was there, and that it is maintained only because of his 4 months on and off as a patient. Even the street it’s on is named Place du Docteur Félix-Rey. Not to take anything away from the good doctor, but there’s nothing to suggest that he did anything to warrant having a street named after him, other than treat this one famous patient.

We wandered around the inner courtyard, and after about 15 minutes, had seen the whole thing. I’m not sure what we were expecting, but it was more than this.

A few interesting notes: Van Gogh painted Dr. Rey’s portrait, which he gave to him as thanks for the truly personal care that he received. Although it’s a good likeness, it seems Dr. Rey didn’t much care for it, and left it with his mother, who used in to cover a hole in the chicken coop. It was bought by an artist in 1901 (I wonder how he found it?) and now hangs in a museum in Moscow.

Got a hole in your chicken coop? Here's the thing you need to cover it up.

Dr Rey, early 1900's.

It was while Van Gogh was in the hospital, that the police closed his Yellow House after a petition by 30 townspeople, who called him “fou roux” (the redheaded madman).

Van Gogh then stayed in a two-room apartment owned by Dr. Rey for a while, who helped arrange for him to be transferred to the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

During this time, when he felt well enough, he went out to paint, including a beautiful series of orchards in bloom. But he was under no illusion that he was well.

On April 21, 1889, Vincent wrote to Theo, “And for the time being I wish to remain confined, as much for my own tranquility as for that of others. What consoles me a little is that I’m beginning to consider madness as an illness like any other and accept the thing as it is, while during the actual crises it seemed to me that everything I was imagining was reality. Anyway, in fact I don’t want to think or talk about it.”

Van Gogh's home for about 4 months during the winter of 1888 / 1889.

We left L’Espace Van Gogh and headed for the town’s main square where we found a small local pop reggae band playing by the fountain outside the city hall.