The Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles

In the last days of 1888 Van Gogh cut off part of his own ear in Arles and was taken to the town hospital. He came and went from it through that winter and spring, and by April 1889, still sleeping there but allowed out to paint by day, he set up in the middle of the courtyard and painted the place that was holding him. It is a tidy garden ringed by arched galleries on two floors, flowerbeds laid out in bright blocks, a few figures under the arcade. Within weeks he would leave Arles for the asylum at Saint-Rémy. He gave this closed hospital garden the same burning reds and greens he had been giving the open wheat fields outside the town.