Following Van Gogh: A Painter’s Pilgrimage Through Provence
What struck me most was how alive these places still feel with his presence- not as a tourist attraction or a legacy to preserve, but as echoes of someone who gave himself completely to his art. It made me want to paint less from reference and more from sensation. To let go of polish and pursue truth—the messy, glowing kind.
There’s something about Provence that vibrates beneath your skin. The light dances differently here- brighter, bolder, almost operatic. I just returned from a trip that felt less like travel and more like a spiritual excavation. I went to see the places where Van Gogh lived, worked, and wrestled with the world, and I came back with a head and heart brimming with color, texture, and longing.
We artists talk a lot about “seeing,” but walking the sun-bleached streets of Arles and Saint-Rémy made me realize that Van Gogh didn’t just see Provence, he absorbed it. He drank in the cypress trees, the swirling skies, the sunflowers that burst open like little suns. He transformed them, not into imitations of what he saw, but into emotional truths.
Some of the locations had changed dramatically. Some had not. In Arles, I stood at the site of the yellow house- no longer standing, but somehow more present than some of the buildings that remain. Its ghost was plainly visible in the landscape; the bridge and larger structures still standing providing silent testimony to its having been there. I sought out the café terrace immortalized in his iconic nighttime painting. I had always imagined it full of life, glowing yellow with the warmth of people and conversation. But what I found was a ghost, still standing, but abandoned. The patio is no longer open, and even in the bright sunlight it felt eerie and hushed, like a photograph someone had poorly developed. It was a quiet reminder that while buildings fade, a painting can hold the pulse of a place long after the moment is gone.
I also spent time in the tranquil garden courtyard of the hospital in Arles where Van Gogh admitted himself after the infamous ear incident. Here was a place that had hardly changed at all. The sparkling provencal sunshine dancing through the trees transported me through time. The courtyard appears in several of his works- peaceful, cloistered, and bathed in lavender light. Standing in that space, surrounded by the colonnade and the flowerbeds he once painted, I felt both the weight of his suffering and the solace he must have found there. It was a reminder that beauty doesn’t always heal, but it does hold us, gently, even in the hardest moments.
And then there is the hallmark of the Provencal landscape, the cypress trees. In photos they had always seemed so serene to me- columnar, composed, almost sculptural. But Van Gogh painted them with a wildness that felt out of place until I stood beneath them myself. The mistral winds tore through the valley like a living thing, tossing the cypress branches in great green waves. They moved with a rhythm that was frantic and graceful all at once. That’s when they came alive for me. I suddenly understood why Van Gogh painted them the way he did- not as stoic sentinels, but as fiery, breathing beings. His interpretations weren’t exaggerated. They were true in a way no photograph could capture. Standing there, watching them swirl and whip and dance, I saw what he saw. Or maybe more accurately, I felt it.
Then, on to Saint-Rémy, where he was institutionalized at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole. It was there that he painted some of his most famous works, including The Starry Night. On my way to the asylum I sought out the quiet little street where he painted The Road Menders. It’s still there, tucked away like a secret. The trees have grown and the cobblestones have been buried under concrete, but the bones of the scene remain. I stood on that road and imagined the laborers he painted—not romanticized, just seen. It struck me that Van Gogh gave dignity to the overlooked, even when he himself was overlooked. That street scene, humble and worn, whispered something timeless about the beauty in the everyday.
Arriving at the asylum I noted that the grounds where he strolled daily is still kept as it was—wild with lavender and irises, framed by olive trees. I lingered longer than I meant to. There was a kind of hush there, like the land knew how much beauty and pain had passed through it.
But nothing prepared me for standing in the olive grove just outside the asylum—the very spot where Van Gogh painted Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun. That particular painting is special to me, simply because it lives near me. It is in the collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and I first encountered it on a field trip as a child. The swirling energy of shadow and light, and the careful attention paid to the form of the trees is perhaps the root of my fixation with painting grapevines today. That painting had soul, and even as a young child I felt it. But actually being there was another thing altogether.
The moment felt surreal, like I’d stepped into the painting itself. The same energy of the grove, the same rolling rhythm of earth and sky. The echo of the mountains whispered in the background. I’ve looked at that painting for years, studied its brushwork and color, but being physically present in that grove—inside the view that inspired it—was profoundly moving. The painting had always felt alive to me, but now I was a part of its life, breathing the same air, tracing the same shadows. It reminded me how timeless great art is—how it collapses the distance between creator and witness.
Sadly, most of the olives were small, having regrown from their roots. The killing frost of 1956 wiped out many old trees in the area. But two old survivors were still standing tall on the edge of the grove. Gnarled and twisted, they spoke of patience, perseverance, and time. These trees had seen Van Gogh. These trees had inspired his brushstrokes, soothed his turbulent soul. They had spoken to him as he worked his palette, and in turn they listened to him more than any human could. And now I was walking beneath them, listening to the silver flutter rustle of their leaves, feeling their life force whispering the desire to be seen and understood once again by the hand of an artist.
What struck me most was how alive these places still feel with his presence—not as a tourist attraction or a legacy to preserve, but as echoes of someone who gave himself completely to his art. It made me want to paint less from reference and more from sensation. To let go of polish and pursue truth—the messy, glowing kind.
Since returning, I’ve been sketching like mad. Grapevines, cypress trees, dream-fractured landscapes. All of it through a new lens. I’m not chasing Van Gogh’s style—how could I?—but I’m learning from his devotion. His bravery in letting the paint say what words never could.
Provence didn’t just inspire me—it infused my current work with something wilder, more honest. The Vita Vinea series, already rooted in the lives of vines and the human condition, now carries a little more wind, a little more fire. Provence has given me a kind of permission- to paint more boldly, to feel more deeply. There’s a new energy in the brushwork, a deeper pulse in the color. I can feel it every time I step up to the canvas. It reminds me that art, at its core, is a kind of reckoning.
And here in the studio, surrounded by sketches and half-finished paintings, the light feels a little different. A little more Provençal, with Van Gogh’s ghost at my shoulder and the mistral still whispering in my ear.