MASP

Van Gogh acquired an interest in painting while working for the art dealer Goupi, in the Netherlands and in London. He later dedicated himself to a religious career among the poor miners of Belgium, until being sent away for supporting the struggles of the workers. There, he began to paint and produced his first notable work, The Potato Eaters (1885). The following year, in Paris, he began to study impressionist technique and Japanese prints. He then moved to Arles, in the south of France, where he began a series of works with splendid lighting and vibrant colors. In this period, he suffered psychic disturbances and compulsory internments in asylums, which culminated in his suicide in 1890. His letters are fundamental documents for the understanding of his work, especially those addressed to his brother, Theo van Gogh (1857-1891). The Stone Bench in the Asylum at Saint-Remy (1889) is a portrait of Van Gogh’s routine during his internments in the intervals between his crises. According to many historians, the twisted trees and the brush marks that lend movement to the landscape evince the artist’s inner conflicts.

— MASP Curatorial Team, 2017

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By Luciano Migliaccio
The painting The Sone Bench in the Asylum at Saint-Remy belonged to Johanna Gesina Van Gogh Bonger (1862-1925), widow of the painter’s brother, Theo Van Gogh (Bardi, 1954). Critics have agreed to date it as autumn, 1889. In May 1889, Van Gogh was institutionalized in a mental hospital set up at the old church of Saint-Pol-de-Mausole, in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. From the window of his studio-cell, Van Gogh could see the asylum garden and the landscape of the Alpilles, which he depicted in his pictures. In early June, following a tranquil phase, the painter was seized by a nervous attack that left him unconscious for a few days. In August, he resumed his work, and depicted scenes from the asylum garden. In December, he tried to swallow pieces of his paintings during another crisis that lasted several days. In comparison with his previous works, the pictures painted at Saint-Rémy are characterized by brush strokes that tend to overlap creating highly dynamic effects with a richer palette of vivid colors. A similar bench, flanked by a tree trunk on each side, is featured in a painting dated probably October 1889. The same site, though seen from a different angle, is found in a watercolor at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, also dated 1889. An Chinese ink drawing of a bench (Fullerton, Norton Simon Foundation) made in that same month of October later served as study for two paintings, one of which is in Essen (Folkwang Museum) and the other at the Van Gogh Museum. Still questioned by a few critics, the latter is thought to have been made at a somewhat earlier date. In the Masp painting, a circular water fountain is featured next to the bench that appears only in another work made in Chinese ink in May or June 1889, (Van Gogh Museum). All these works constitute but a small part of Van Gogh’s production in this period when he worked intensely in the intervals between crises. During those months he wrote to his brother: “Here is a warning. Everyone will think that I work too fast. Do not believe it. I am guided by emotion and an authentic feeling for nature; at times these emotions become so strong that one works unconsciously, the brush strokes flow naturally and join together like the words of a speech or a letter: and here one should note that things are not always this way and that there are days without inspiration. For this reason one must form hot iron by hammering it into shape and then set aside the bars you have forged”.

— Luciano Migliaccio, 1998

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