Entrance to a Quarry

This is a quarry in the low hills behind Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, the hospital outside Saint-Remy where Van Gogh admitted himself in May 1889 and where he was let out to paint under supervision. By his own account he was at work on this canvas when he felt an attack coming on. The collapse that followed took weeks out of his summer, and for part of that time his paints were kept from him. When he sent a roll of pictures north to Theo in September he singled this one out, saying he liked the way the dark greens sat against the ochre tones and that there was something sad in them that was healthy. He went back to the same quarry entrance that autumn for a second canvas, which he compared to those Japanese drawings of rocks with grasses and small trees growing out of them.