The garden at the asylum at Saint-Rémy

Van Gogh had himself admitted to the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, just outside Saint-Rémy in Provence, on 8 May 1889. For the first month he was not allowed off the grounds, so the overgrown garden with its old pines was the whole of his available subject, and this large upright canvas, about 90 centimetres tall, was painted there that May. He worked from an awkward position close to the wall of the building, and the depth comes from a path running off on the diagonal with a stone bench beside it. The bushes and trees are built up in thick strokes laid one over another. That September, still inside the asylum, he wrote to his sister Willemien that the poorer and iller he got, the more he wanted to take his revenge by making brilliant colour, well arranged.