Vincent returned to the yellow house
yesterday and immediately began
painting again — a self-portrait,
complete with the big bandage
around his head, and a picture of
Felix Rey, his doctor.

Vincent is in the hospital again, only this time it's his mind that's wounded. Three days ago
some of the neighbours panicked because he was acting so strangely. They're fed up with his drinking
and whoring. They actually sent a petition around begging the authorities to have him put away.
Fou roux, they called him, the red-headed madman. The police even ordered the Yellow House closed
because they felt it was an unhealthy place. Vincent said he was hearing voices
and wondered if someone was trying to poison him.

Dr Rey is treating him and says he's now mostly quite calm. The painter Paul Signac,
who was travelling to Cassis and who long ago convinced Vincent to try pointillism,
which was after all such a big influence on him, has been to visit
and found him in good cheer under the circumstances.

Vincent has decided to become a patient at the asylum of St Paul-de-Mausolée. It's in the ancient abbey of Mausolée des Jules in Saint-Rémy de Provence, 15 miles away. Nostramadus was born in Saint-Rémy nearly 400 years ago, did you know? Franciscan monks have been taking care of the mentally ill there for centuries. It's nice and secluded and quiet, and there are lovely grounds
full of cypress trees and lavender.

Vincent had come home from the Hôtel Dieu after 10 days, and he was feeling well enough — he'd had a letter from Théo, who married his fiancée Johanna on April 17 — but understood that he needed more help than Dr Rey could provide here in Arles. Rev Salles went with him on the train and reports that he was fine all the way and explained his problem to Dr Peyron there quite clearly. Dr Peyron thinks he has an epileptic disorder. They'll let him rest and
give him baths to calm his nerves.

It's been reckoned up that, since he arrived
in Arles, just 15 months ago, Vincent has
done about 200 paintings and
another hundred drawings.

Around Saint-Rémy the Office de Tourisme has created a mapped trail illustrated with 21 signposts with reproductions of Van Gogh paintings, all dating from his time here. The tour begins near the asylum and ends at the Hôtel Estrine in Passage Blain in the old town, which hosts the Centre d’Art Presence Van Gogh.

Van Gogh here portrays Aries, the constellation of his birth, with the stars uncannily placed in their near-exact positions alongside the moon and Venus. Only the prominent cypress tree, so crucial to the composition, disturbs the astronomical fidelity, separating the two stars at the lower left further than they are in reality.

Vincent is allowed to roam around in the vicinity of the hospital,
and he's doing many paintings. He's only occasionally depressed,
and very productive, doing fine impressionistic work but with
sharper colours and accented lines, and with some
extraordinary perspectives.

Everything is shipped to Théo, but he makes copies
of the best so he can keep track of his own progress.

Vincent is showing two of his works
at the month-long fifth Salon des
Indépendants — "Irises" and "Starry
Night on the Rhône" — and the
reaction has been very encouraging
for him. Monet and Pisarro have
expressed their admiration, and so
has the influential critic Albert Aurier.

Vincent has had another relapse.
We wonder if his trips back to Arles
cause a problem for him, or maybe he
just isn't ready to go far from the asylum.
He was in Arles for a day in July
to collect some of his paintings
left behind and then had an attack
while he was sketching in the hospital
grounds and had to stay
indoors for six weeks.

Then last month he came back to Arles
to visit Rev Salles and Ginoux,
the innkeeper, only to collapse
soon after he went back to St Paul.

They told us that Vincent has tried to
kill himself at the hospital by swallowing paint. They had to take all his
paints away from him, so all he could do
for a while was sketch.

But he's been doing such beautiful
work, especially his copies of some of the
great paintings of history, by Millet,
Rembrandt and Delacroix and others. He
says it helps him get back on track after he's
had a seizure. He copies black-and-white
prints and renders them in the colours he
sees, and will adjust the composition as well.

Vincent's name is becoming well known. There was an article about him in the Mercure de France last month, by the art critic who likes his work so much, Aurier. "Les Isolés: Vincent van Gogh", it was called. And now he has six paintings in the Les Vingt exhibition in Brussels. They're the new avant-garde artists who've had enough of stodgy old juried shows. One of them insulted Vincent's work at the opening, but Toulouse-Lautrec rushed heatedly to his defence with Signac to back him up.

And good news from Théo, as well: he and Johanne had a baby son on January 31, and they named him Vincent Wilhelm.

Of his brother's new paintings he's seen, Théo is thrilled to find "a vigour in the colours which you had never achieved before.

"But you have gone further than that, and while some try to attain the symbolic by doing violence to the form, I find it in many of your canvases in the quintessence ... of your thoughts on nature and
living creatures."

There are 10 Van Gogh paintings on show at the Salon des Indépendants this month, but poor Vincent is in bad shape at the hospice. He came back to Arles for a couple of days in late February, but it was too much for him. He had a severe attack and had to be taken back.

Vincent can be in his care.