The long and winding road (Part 2)

Our next stop was only about a kilometre and a half away but it was uphill and on a busy road. We rode our bikes out of the city centre up to the Clinique St-Paul-De-Mausole. This Ancien Monastère de St-Paul-de-Mausole had been a Franciscan friary before being “nationalised” after the French Revolution and sold for cash. A pioneering figure, Dr Louis Mercurin is credited with converting it into a mental asylum in 1807. Over time the institution was re-staffed with nuns from various religious orders.

St-Paul-de-Mausole established itself as a sanctuary of peace and this is where Vincent Van Gogh chose to be admitted as a patient between May 1889 and May 1890. Although confined to the grounds, he enjoyed a lot of freedom and was granted a workroom in addition to his small bedroom. Van Gogh’s year at St-Paul was one of the most prolific period of his artistic life, and he completed many paintings based on the asylum and surrounding gardens. Copies of these were on display close to the location they were based on.

The collection known as Van Gogh’s Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy includes many of his masterpieces, among them Bedroom in Arles, Starry Night over the Rhône, The Wheat Field and several portraits of fellow patients. We visited the garden, 12th-century cloister and a number of rooms within the main building, including Van Gogh’s bedroom. St-Paul still functions as a mental health hospital (in a separate building) that specialises in art therapy.Read more