A 2015 Lunasol Company creation: Simona Acerbi, Boris Bruguière, Carine Charrier
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.
In February 1888, the Dutch painter discovered Arles on his quest for the light of the Midi. He stayed until May the following year.
Despite poverty, loneliness and his internment in the Hôtel Dieu - the old hospital is now the "Espace van Gogh" arts centre - Arles inspired his most powerful and personal expression of light and colour in painting. His palette leaned towards a greater intensity of tones and chromatic interplay. We can sense the exaltation, tension and anguish of this feverish period, in which the artist produced 200 paintings - including some of his most famous - and almost as many drawings and letters.
No work by the artist remains in the region, with the exception of this precious handwritten letter addressed to the painter Paul Gauguin in 1889 which the city was able to buy through the generosity of the inhabitants of Arles.
