Upon leaving Paris for Provence early in 1888, Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his painter friend Émile Bernard: “Spleen is not in the air down here.” The move south inspired a richly creative period for the artist. Another letter to Bernard includes a drawing of the Langlois Bridge over the Rhône, whose “stretches of water make patches of a beautiful emerald.” In a later letter to Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh sketched his bedroom in the Yellow House in Arles. Avoiding the outdoors due to problems with his eyesight, he explains how he painted The Bedroom (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) “with a simplicity à la Seurat,” finding in its lilac, blood red, and pale lemon-green colors a feeling of “utter repose.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), Autograph letter signed: Arles, to Émile Bernard, with sketch of the bridge at Arles, 1888 Mar. 18. MA 6441.2 (p. 1). Autograph letter: to Paul Gauguin, with sketch of “Bedroom at Arles,” 1888 Oct. 17. MA 6447 (p. 2). Thaw Collection, given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007.