Bedroom in Arles

Van Gogh painted this bedroom from memory in September 1889, from inside the asylum at Saint-Remy where he had committed himself after the breakdown in Arles. The room itself was gone from his life by then. It was his bedroom in the Yellow House, the home he had shared briefly with Gauguin before everything fell apart, and he had loved the first painting of it so much that when damp threatened the original he set about making this careful copy. He wanted it to feel restful, and told Theo the flat colours and simple furniture were meant to suggest sleep. The pairs everywhere, two pillows, two chairs, two little pictures, belong to a house he had hoped to fill and no longer had.