Van Gogh in Provence
Vincent Van Gogh, the Dutch post-impressionist painter, painted some of his most famous works in the south of France. In the two years that Van Gogh spent in Provence, he produced around 200 paintings and 100 drawings of the area’s people and landscapes.
Some of those landscapes contain lots of wavy lines which portray the movement of cypress trees, wheat fields and other vegetation. But what was causing all that movement? Was it just a gentle breeze, or could it have been that powerful wind known as the Mistral which roars down the Rhone Valley through Provence?
If you’ve ever experienced that gusting wind that makes it almost impossible to walk, it’s easy to see it in the swirling painted sky of Starry Night, one of Van Gogh’s most well-known paintings.
If you look closely at The Starry Night, you can see that the sky isn’t still. It seems to roll and curl above the village, while the cypress tree dances like a dark flame and the trees in the valley ripple below.
Van Gogh wasn’t simply painting a starry sky. He was painting a landscape in motion.
Let’s Talk About That Wind
The locals call it Ce sacré Mistral! (That blessed, or damned, Mistral!) And they say it can blow the tail off a donkey or the horns off a bull. (That’s a strong wind.)
The Wind That Drives You Mad
When the mistral is blowing, which it does for days at a time, it’s best to stay indoors. It’s said that the constant howling can make people do strange things, cause headaches, or make it difficult to sleep.
It’s even called “the wind that drives you mad” – le vent qui rend fou. One bit of folklore says that once upon a time those who committed a crime while under the maddening influence of the Mistral would have gotten a lighter sentence because of it.
Painting in the Wind
Vincent Van Gogh moved to Arles in 1888 where he was inspired by the pure light and colors that shone through after the Mistral had blown the clouds away.
But even when the Mistral was raging, Van Gogh was determined to paint. He would drive iron pegs into the ground and tie the legs of his easel to them to keep it from blowing away. Then he had to tie down the canvas – what determination!
The Wind That Drives You Mad
It’s a well-known fact that Van Gogh suffered with his mental health, and moving to a place with a vent qui rend fou (a wind that drives you mad) probably wasn’t the best move for him.
In 1889, after the “ear incident” Vincent committed himself to an asylum in St. Remy de Provence where he continued to paint between his bouts of depression.
Starry Night or Windy Night?
It was in St. Remy that Van Gogh completed one of his most recognized works, The Starry Night. When you look at this painting and see the swirls in the sky and the swaying cypress trees, you can’t help but wonder if Van Gogh was actually painting the howling Mistral wind – especially if you compare it to Starry Night over the Rhone which is a very calm starry night.
So was Van Gogh painting the Mistral wind? We can’t know for sure. But after spending years in Provence, he certainly would have known how the wind made the landscape move.
The next time you look at The Starry Night, forget the stars for a moment. Look at those swirls in the sky. Look at the cypress. Look at the hills.
Can you feel the wind?
Was Van Gogh actually painting the swirling, invisible wind in the sky? In my humble opinion, this famous Starry Night painting should be called Windy Night.
Can you too now see the wind in Van Gogh’s art? Let me know in the comments section.
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You can read more stories like this in Curious Histories of Provence: Tales from the South of France by Margo Lestz
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