Vincent van Gogh – Hospital at Saint-Rémy

Hospital at Saint-Rémy is the painting Vincent van Gogh made in 1889 in the garden of the Saint-Paul asylum near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he lived as a patient: tall pine trees with twisting orange-brown trunks rise in front of the long yellow building with its green shutters and red roof, and their dark green crowns fill a sky of short blue strokes. The original measures 92.2 x 73.4 cm and belongs to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. We paint it by hand in oil on canvas, in 16 sizes from 40 x 50 to 151 x 190 cm or to your own measurement, and send you a photograph of the finished work for approval before dispatch.

Hospital at Saint-Rémy – Vincent van Gogh

What does Hospital at Saint-Rémy show?

The painting shows the garden of the Saint-Paul asylum, seen from among its trees. Tall pines take up most of the upright canvas. Their slender orange-brown trunks bend as they rise, and their crowns are built from short, curving strokes of dark green, light green and yellow. Behind them the sky is not one smooth blue but a field of small streaks in several blues and white, and dark branches arch across the top edge. On the right a larger tree twists upwards, its foliage painted in yellow and ochre that seems to move like flames.

Only the lower third belongs to the building. The long facade of the asylum is a bright yellow, with green shutters, a red tiled roof and a central entrance with an arched door and a small balcony above it. Small figures stand and walk in the garden: one in pale clothes with a red hat in the lower left corner, two dark figures near the door and another between the trunks. Round green bushes sit on red-brown earth in the foreground.

Why do the pine trees take up more room than the hospital?

Because for Van Gogh the garden was the subject. When he arrived at Saint-Paul he was at first confined to the grounds of the asylum, so he painted what he could reach: the garden, its flowers and its trees.

Wikipedia quotes a letter from the first week of October 1889 in which he wrote of two views of the gardens and the asylum, where the place looks very attractive. In his words, he had tried to reconstruct it as it might have been, simplifying and accentuating the proud, unchanging nature of the pine trees and the clumps of cedar against the blue. It is not known which two canvases he meant, but pines against the blue are exactly what fills this one.

What does the painting mean?

Van Gogh did not explain this painting, but the sources show the place it held in his life. The stay at Saint-Paul brought him, in Wikipedia’s words, a hard-won stability, and he wrote that he felt happier there with his work than he could be outside. To his brother Theo he wrote that when Theo received the canvases he had done in the garden, he would see that he was not too melancholy there.

In the reading of the Wikipedia article on Van Gogh’s Saint-Paul asylum paintings, nature was especially meaningful to him during this year, and trees and the landscape stood for the chance of transformation.

Where is the original today?

The original belongs to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, as part of the Armand Hammer Collection. The museum lists it as Hospital at Saint-Rémy, 1889, oil on canvas, 92.2 x 73.4 cm, under the accession number AH.90.81. It is also known as Trees in the Garden of the Hospital Saint-Paul.

The asylum itself is Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, just outside Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in southern France, about 19 km north-east of Arles. According to Wikipedia it began as an Augustinian monastery in the 12th century and was converted into an asylum in the 19th century. Van Gogh entered it voluntarily on 8 May 1889. His brother Theo arranged two small rooms for him, the second to be used as a studio.

Hospital at Saint-Rémy or another painting from Saint-Rémy – which to choose?

Over the year he spent at Saint-Paul, Van Gogh painted about 150 canvases. Irises was painted in 1889 from the irises in the asylum garden, the same garden as here, but seen close up, with flowers instead of trees. The Starry Night, from 1889 as well, shows the view outside the window of his room at night; Wikipedia notes that he painted it from memory during the day. Choose Hospital at Saint-Rémy if you want the place itself, the building where he lived and worked, framed by its trees.

Outside the grounds he also painted the olive groves and cypresses around Saint-Rémy. Cypresses and Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background are both from 1889 in Saint-Rémy; next to either of them, this painting adds the view from inside the asylum garden.

How is our hand-painted Hospital at Saint-Rémy made?

The painter first sets out the lines of the trunks, the edge of the roof and the entrance of the building. Then come the streaked sky, the yellow facade, the red-brown ground, and last the crowns of the pines in thick, curving strokes of green and yellow, with the small figures in the garden. Our oil painting reproduction is painted by hand in oil on canvas with real impasto: the paint goes on thickly, so the brushstrokes stand up from the canvas as they do in the original and catch the light.

On this painting the relief matters most in the crowns of the pines, in the flame-like tree on the right and in the streaks of the sky. A print shows only a flat surface; on our painting the strokes are real.

Every painting is a hand-painted copy made for your order, so no two are quite the same.

Which size for which wall?

Short answer: 60 x 75 or 66 x 83 cm above a sideboard, a desk or a bed, 90 x 110 or 100 x 120 cm above a sofa, and 151 x 190 cm for a high wall or a stairwell. The upright format also suits a narrow wall between two windows, a hallway or a study.

There are 16 sizes: 40 x 50, 50 x 60, 50 x 62, 54 x 65, 60 x 75, 66 x 83, 73 x 90, 80 x 100, 90 x 110, 100 x 120, 109 x 135, 120 x 150, 127 x 160, 134 x 170, 142 x 180 and 151 x 190 cm (width x height). The original is 73.4 cm wide and 92.2 cm high, so our 73 x 90 cm size comes very close to it. With its blue sky, dark greens and yellow facade, it sits well on a white, light grey or cream wall, and on a warm sand-coloured one that picks up the garden earth. A 40 x 50 cm size fits above a bedside table. A painting for the living room should take up about two thirds of the width of the furniture below it.

Hang it with the centre of the canvas about 150 cm above the floor, leaving 20 to 30 cm between the furniture and the bottom edge.

What if I need a custom size or a frame?

If none of the 16 sizes fits your wall, we paint it to measure. Keep the proportions close to the original, otherwise the tall pines get squeezed or the building stretched. Send us the width and height you want and we will quote a price and a lead time. Every painting we make is stretched over a wooden stretcher and ready to hang.

For the moulding, use our 3D application: it shows each of our frame profiles on this subject, so you can compare gold, silver, black, white and natural wood – the application is for choosing the frame only. Seeing the painting on your own wall is our separate room placement service. A gold frame picks up the yellow facade and the ochre foliage, and a black or dark wood frame deepens the blue of the sky and the green of the pines.

How does delivery work, and what is the guarantee?

Every painting is made to order in our studio in Slovenia, so allow 15 to 45 days depending on the size you choose. We ship it stretched and protected, framed if you chose a frame, across the EU with no customs. Before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished work to approve, and we correct anything that is not right. Our returns policy applies to every order.

You will find more famous Van Gogh paintings among all our Vincent van Gogh paintings, and there is more about the painter in our article on Vincent van Gogh. If you are giving it as a present and are not sure of the size, a wall art voucher lets the recipient choose.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the original of Hospital at Saint-Rémy today?

In the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, in the Armand Hammer Collection. The museum lists it as Hospital at Saint-Rémy, 1889, oil on canvas, 92.2 x 73.4 cm, with the accession number AH.90.81. The asylum it shows, Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, lies just outside Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in southern France, about 19 km north-east of Arles.

When and where did Van Gogh paint Hospital at Saint-Rémy?

In 1889, in the garden of the Saint-Paul asylum near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he lived as a patient from May 1889 to May 1890. He painted it from inside the grounds, looking through the pine trees towards the building. In a letter from early October 1889 he wrote of two views of the gardens and the asylum.

What building is shown in Hospital at Saint-Rémy?

The asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where Van Gogh lived from May 1889. According to Wikipedia it began as an Augustinian monastery in the 12th century and was converted into an asylum in the 19th century. In the painting you see its long yellow facade with green shutters, a red roof and the arched entrance, half hidden behind the pines.

Why was Van Gogh in the hospital at Saint-Rémy?

He went there of his own will. After the crisis in Arles in December 1888, when he cut off his ear, he was hospitalized in Arles twice, and in May 1889 he left Arles. On 8 May 1889 he voluntarily entered the asylum of Saint-Paul, run at the time by Dr Théophile Peyron, and stayed about a year.

How long did Van Gogh stay in the hospital at Saint-Rémy?

About a year, from 8 May 1889 to May 1890. Over that time he painted about 150 canvases, among them the garden, the enclosed wheat field below his window, and the olive groves and cypresses outside the walls. By early 1890 he felt the stay was not helping him, and in May 1890 he moved to Auvers-sur-Oise north of Paris.

Was The Starry Night painted at the same hospital as Hospital at Saint-Rémy?

Yes. Both come from his year at the Saint-Paul asylum in 1889. The Starry Night shows the view outside the window of his room at night, and Wikipedia notes that he painted it from memory during the day. Hospital at Saint-Rémy shows the asylum itself by daylight, seen from its garden through the tall pines.

How big is the original of Hospital at Saint-Rémy?

The original is 92.2 cm high and 73.4 cm wide, an upright format. Our 73 x 90 cm size comes very close to it, and there are smaller and larger sizes from 40 x 50 up to 151 x 190 cm, as well as custom sizes painted to measure. Above a sofa, 90 x 110 or 100 x 120 cm is a good choice, and 60 x 75 cm suits a desk or a hallway.

Does your Hospital at Saint-Rémy have the raised brushstrokes of the original?

Yes. We paint our copy in impasto: the paint goes on thickly, so the brushstrokes stand up from the canvas as on Van Gogh’s original. You see it best in the curving strokes of the pine crowns, in the yellow tree on the right and in the short streaks of the blue sky, where the relief catches the light and changes as you walk past the painting.

Is Hospital at Saint-Rémy a good gift?

It suits someone who is drawn to Van Gogh’s year in Provence, to gardens and old trees, or to the story behind The Starry Night, and it works well in a hallway, a study or on a narrow wall of a living room. As a canvas painting in blue, green and warm yellow, it brings strong colour into a calm room, and a voucher lets the recipient choose the size.

• Subject: tall pines with twisting trunks in the garden of the Saint-Paul asylum, in front of its long yellow facade with green shutters, under a sky of short blue strokes.
• Original: 1889, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, 92.2 x 73.4 cm, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
• Ours: a Van Gogh reproduction painted by hand in oil on canvas, in 16 sizes from 40 x 50 to 151 x 190 cm or made to measure.
• Worth knowing: our 73 x 90 cm size is very close to the size of the original in Los Angeles.