Walking with Vincent in Arles

For 444 days and nights, Vincent Van Gogh— genius, artist, madman— walked the streets of Arles, the land of night cafes, yellow houses and cosmic colours. 

Here, in this picturesque town on the Rhone River, he created a dreamscape through his paintings, changing the course of history for artists and art lovers. The Mediterranean climate, coastal marshlands, and Roman monuments—Arles has the makings of an epicentre of cultural cosmopolitanism. Vincent dreamed of making “a refuge for artists who like the sun and colours,” in the countryside of Southern France. His wishes have come true beyond his life. Since his arrival to Arles, from the cold, claustrophobic and foggy 19th century Paris of forever transformed the fate of this place into an ever-evolving space of inspirations that calls the creative at heart.

Near The Rhone

It is 1888, and the air is heavy with distant dreams. Vincent stood on the quay, watching two lovers walk by the river banks while the great constellations sparkle above. With “Starry Night Over the Rhone,” Vincent brought together the celestial and the intimate. Today, every traveller’s eyes search for the hypnotic brush strokes that miraculously caught the ripples and the reflections, the stars and the silence, the lovers and the loners. New eyes transcend time to watch what he saw, experience what he felt and perceive what he drew. 

To his dearest brother, Theo, Vincent recounts the hues of the night: “The sky is aquamarine, the water is royal blue, the ground is mauve.”  Everything in this world, even life itself, was all but a long list of colours to him.

By The Cafe

It is 2022, an admirer stands near the ‘Le Café La Nuit’ to be mesmerized by the coffeehouse refurbished to look like Vincent’s painting ‘Café Terrace at Night.’ For generations, many admirers have stood where he kept his easel to experience his genius—the way he mapped the stars, depicted the drinkers and painted the cobbled streets. A visit to Arles is the best way to learn how painting the night without black can make blue look beautiful and make it feel like the warmest of colours. Regrettably, the source for the “russet gold, yellow and green bronze” of the gas lighting is now long gone in the modern world.  

A few minutes’ walk from where he painted the stars, was the yellow house illuminated by “a sulphur sun under a pure cobalt sky.” Time and war have taken away the house that Vincent said looked like “fresh butter”, but the street remains. Today, walking this street is an intoxicating endeavour. How the clear sky of blue and azure makes the most wonderful contrast with the bright houses of beige and yellow!

The pastel palettes and the vibrant shades, the everyday and the extraordinary, the cute independent boutique shops and the established art foundations, Arles inspires everyone.   

Around The Town

Arles was once known as ‘the Rome of Gaul — boasting old sarcophagi and amphitheatre. Van Gogh, however, was more intrigued by the gardens and parks with their oleanders, acacias, cypresses, weeping willows, cornfields and orchards. Spending time to paint all these outdoor wonders also made him interested in the people of this land. 

In his letters, he talks about the beauty of the Arlesiennes as the epitome of femininity. He was overwhelmed by how colour played an important part in the beauty of the women of Arles, who dressed in green, red, violet, pink, white scarves, and yellow parasols. While the times have changed, the colourful people of Arles still stand out. People walking down the streets, chatting in the cafes and strolling around the many art galleries in this town, evoke rich inner lives that feel almost like an extension of the landscape they inhabit.     

On this Provencal pilgrimage, each café on the street corners, every sunflower swaying with the breeze and all that shines under the bright sunlight seem like a call to retrace Vincent’s footsteps. Here, he lived and dined, lost in his thoughts. Here, he walked the gardens and collected the everyday observation to pour them on his canvas. Sending letter after letter to Theo, as he reached the zenith of his artistic life, he inevitably shared the inner workings of the mind of an artist consumed by his art. Trapped in his search for perfection in his paintings, he wrote again to Theo, “…All seem to me creatures from another world.”   

Coming to Arles can feel like a communion with the Muses. Like Vincent, walking these streets is an experience that can spark the imagination to look at the world with new eyes.