Meadow in the Garden of
Saint-Paul Hospital
Saint-Remy, May 1890
Oil on canvas 64.5x81cm
London, National Gallery
This painting was done just before Vincent left Saint-Remy. He was sober now. He had less than three months to live. The painting is an ordinary piece of earth. One that is not different from scruffy grass fields any of us have looked at; noticed there are no wild flowers and ignored, then walked on. It is the fact that it is so ubiquitous, a humble part of the living planet that attracted Vincent’s eye. He had a wonderful appreciation of the simple, and the overlooked. He saw the golds, browns and greens, and the dark shadows. The narrow path and the suggestion of grape vines, a vineyard, is just above the top edge of the canvas. Most painters would have picked the vineyard to paint. The irregular randomness of the deeply textured grass, on this day in May inspired Vincent. It is the kind of emptiness that attracts children to play and Walt Whitman to write Leaves of Grass. Just the earth, just the grass.
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