April 24, 2019 Van Gogh Encore: Les Baux and St. Remy

With a 90% chance of rain this morning, an inside activity is required. So last night I reserved 5 places for the 10:30 showing of Van Gogh: Starry Night in Les Baux-de-Provence.

The Alpilles outside of Les Baux-de-Provence

If you've read previous posts, you will know that this is a multi-media show set in a former limestone quarry where images are shown on the immense quarry walls, ceiling and floor accompanied by pieces of music from Janis Joplin to Nina Simone to classical.

Van Gogh : La Nuit Étoilée. Interactive multi-media exhibition

Judy in front of sunflowers. My camera didn't do such a good job at getting foreground and background. Hopefully, Judy's cell phone did better.

Each musical piece reflects the theme of the pictures being displayed. A loosely chronological sequence of Van Gogh's working periods starts with an overview of his range of paintings, then presents his drawings and paintings from his early years in the Netherlands, followed by Paris, then Arles, his hospitalization at St. Remy and final paintings from Auvers-sur-Oise.

early works

painting from Arles

Still Life with Flowers, Paris 1887 (on left)

While the setting and power of these hugely magnified images, often showing the brush strokes themselves of the paintings, is, in itself, spectacular, what can't be described is the feeling of being immersed in the painting itself. One often feels, literally, inside the painting itself.

Irises - but which one?

We all spent much time trying to capture this experience on video and in photos. Clark's camera seems to have done the best job at getting the lighting right, but his videos are long and he was able to capture almost the entire show. North Carolina friends and family will delight to see these when he gets home.

This video clip is Dave's which is a pretty dark, but the best we can do given our cameras. This one is from the accompanying Rêve Japon showing the influence of Japonese art on the Impressionists. Clark has posted a Van Gogh one to Facebook which is better. You could try this link: https://www.facebook.com/janis.hunsinger/posts/1191416291038476 

Because there is a constant hum of conversation as people watch and move about the space, some found it distracting. I have to say that my brain seems to have drowned it out and only in listening to Clark's recordings was I aware how loud it really was. In the same way, my brain ignored the seams in the quarried columns on which the images were displayed. When looking at the recordings, these seem much more obvious. I guess that's what immersive art is all about. You are in the moment and not judgmental about small things.

This image from the Rêve de Japon (dreams of Japon) exhibition shows how the vertical and horizontal shadows of uneven surfaces actually show up in an image. I didn't notice them when viewing live.

Our plan was perfect, for when we left the quarry, the rain had stopped and it was mostly windy and quite cool. We ate our lunch in the car while devising an afternoon plan.

Since St. Remy was on our way home and was the psychiatric hospital Van Gogh lived in for a year, and the weather seemed to be clearing, we decided to make a quick stop.

entry to the Monastère de St. Paul de Mausole

Except for us, a "quick" stop is never quick - 2 hours is pretty average.

The walls surrounding the monastery and entrance to the museum area. This is still a working hospital with patients housed in other buildings in the monastery.

St. Remy has been home to the Monastère Saint Paul de Mausole since the 11th century. Various groups of monks have called this monastery home over the years, but the monastery has always cared for those with mental illness.

Lynn in front of entrance to the chapel and cloister of the monastery

After confiscation during the French Revolution, the monastery was sold to Dr. Mercurin who continued to use nuns as nurses in the care of the mentally disabled along side lay doctors and nurses. It continues this mission today.

View from the monastery entrance back to the entrance of the chapel and cloister

When Van Gogh was housed here at the request (and monetary support) of his brother, Theo, the head of the hospital, Dr. Peyron, was progressive in his thinking about how the insane should be treated. He did much to modernize the care of those with mental illness, including encouraging art therapy.
Thus, Van Gogh was encouraged to paint in the year he was hospitalized here. (1889-1890)

Judy next to Van Gogh holding a sunflower. Judy thinks he must have been tall.

He was incredibly prolific in that year, producing 143 paintings and 150 drawings, most of them scenes around the hospital. Surprisingly to some, Van Gogh only ever sold one painting during his life and so was not accepted to St. Remy as an artist, but simply as a man with mental illness. (This was after the ear incident in Arles.) Some of his mental anguish was because he felt an outsider, worthless, and had difficulty relating to people. Reconciling his passion for painting with family and cultural norms of work was a life-long struggle for Vincent. The madness that gave him the gift of painting, gave us a huge body of work that is a treasure of western culture, even though it played a part of his death at a young age. (37 years)

I had been to St. Remy with students in 2003 and was impressed with how much better the museum quality of this site was linked to Van Gogh today. Our entrance fee was 6 Euros each and 3 Euros for an audio guide in English.

All along the path into the chapel and cloister area, there are enlarged prints of works Van Gogh painted next to the site where he painted them.

the Alpilles

the Alpilles today from the entrance drive

again, the Alpilles, this time with olive trees

today, the landscape is similar

The chapel, as old as the monastery itself, is "naturellement" romanesque having been built in the 11th century.
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chapel (left) cloister building (right)

chapel nave

window above the altar

The adjoining cloister to the right is lovely and quiet. Its second floor contains rooms that housed first the religious nuns and monks, then later patients, the most well-known to us, of course, was Vincent Van Gogh.

cloister

cloister

His room has been restored based on Van Gogh's description of it in a letter to his brother, Theo. He was allowed wide range to wander the countryside, first with someone watching him, later on his own.

Van Gogh's reconstructed bedroom, based on description from letters to his brother, Theo.

Behind the cloister is a garden with irises blooming now and lavender which will bloom in June.

behind the cloister and chapel, irises need no introduction

these rows of lavender will bloom profusely in June.

The wheat fields he painted seem to be gone, but the serenity of the landscape is inescapable even with tourists wandering the paths.

An example of how paintings were mounted from Van Gogh's perspective

At the end of the driveway into the monastery and 100 yards on the left is the remains of a Roman Cenotaph and entrance arch to the former city of Glanum (which is no more than ruins now). We walked over to investigate.

Glanum was first an oppidum (fortified city) inhabited by the Salyes tribe (never heard of them before, but they were pretty prosperous and played nice with the Greeks and Romans. Then they had the gall (not Gaul 😉) to rebel against the Romans and were destroyed. Since this was on the Via Domitia (the Roman road from Rome to Spain), this became a Roman city in 29 BC and prospered until 260 AD, when it was overrun by "barbarians".

the triumphal arch

The residents remaining abandoned the city and moved to what today is St. Remy. They used the stones of Glanum for building material. Flooding of the Roman site caused it to be buried in mud and its remains were first excavated in the 20th century. Sounds like a place we need to go back to explore, but for today, seeing the triumphal arch and cenotaph are enough.

This is the cenotaph - a memorial built to the parents of two Roman men. People thought this was a mausoleum and so the term "mausole" became attached to this part of the city - hence, St. Paul de Mausole. 

This is one of the two statues in the cupola of the cenotaph. The other is missing its head. Another casualty of the French Revolution, I expect. (Is that cutting off your head to spite your face? I'll bet the French would like to have all those missing heads back now for the sake of history and tourism. A warning to upcoming revolutionaries.)

Time to head home.