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Published: March 21st 2006
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Cliff-Side
The Arc of Les Baux Upon the cliffs, deep within a georgic land of the Alpilles they met their madness. Okay… one certainly more severe than the other, but to a degree they’re both equal.
It was Les Baux, a hill town (actually “cliff-town”) set in the Middle Ages. Today, upon a limestone plateau, it is still nestled beneath an imposing decay of rocks, walls and towers which is known as its defining chateau. This fortified village lying within the region of Provence has a population below 500, but the presence of past inhabitants pervades and leaves questionable the future of those present.
As we arrived at the
B&B Le Prince Noir for a two-night stay, a tall lanky man appeared holding what looked to be a witch’s broom. His smile cracked unevenly up a long narrow face as we greeted one another. Dark brown hair was cropped short and a late afternoon beard grew restlessly. He was the owner and our host who led us in, leaving his sweeping choirs behind, to show us our rooms.
I listened to his tutorial as he presented his own chateau; a small unique three-bedroom nook built into the rock of the cliffs. But more interesting were his
Solemn Roads
Les Baux's narrow cobbles antics, his character. My ears were open, but my eyes were intent as I watched his gate. It was like a wire in a wind-swept fire; contorted with the floundering gestures of his expressions and movement. I was reminded of another man, mad in his isolation of this countryside land.
Five kilometers through olive groves and the twisting pine hills, the town of Saint-Remy boasts an interesting, yet immortalized, history. The Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh spent his days here in 1889-90, and through a source of grueling inspiration, pumped out his most successful period of paintings and drawings. But he came to this region of the Alpilles through madness, a madness confirmed in the city of Arles.
There, within the natty town of the late 19th century, the artist found beauty beneath the surface, painting intriguing, often ordinary, subjects and transforming them into his eye’s vision. He even succeeded in conjuring his artist friend Paul Gauguin to join him, but as the months passed, their temperaments with one another flared. As oils mixed with water, van Gogh met Gauguin out on the street in disagreement. He was armed to the teeth with a shining metal razor.
Did you know van Gogh?
I heard an echo in return in the town of St. Remy Van Gogh threatened Gauguin, but was stared down, pushed deeper into his despair and loneliness by fear and timidity. He returned to his room upstairs and decided willingly during his first attack of mental illness to just…cut off his ear.
Likewise, the family members, friends and citizens had an ear to care for him, but first with a degree of severity. The mayor of Arles, after raising a petition against the artist, ordered for him to be sealed in his house and locked there for one month. Time passed, treatment became more sympathetic, and upon concern by his younger brother Theo, van Gogh moved northward to St-Remy and admitted himself into an asylum.
We walked through the two bedrooms, quaint and simple, but with a modern artistic flare. Our host showed the room’s tricks so the four of us would remain comfortable. He joked and he twitched. His laugh was course, wild like the winter’s
le mistral. He mentioned this was an artist’s home; he and his wife were artists.
On the rooftop we overlooked the small stone village. Cobblestone alleys were tan in the late afternoon light as a strong breeze blew up from
below, chilling our nostrils. Beyond the town, our host pointed with a branched finger to the limestone cliffs across the way. And behind us, he described the chateau which remained in ruins from its final 1632 assault. We were in the hands of Les Baux, of the French Provencal bucolic ways, and as I looked at our host, at the ruins, at the endings and the madness of the artists whom created it, I wasn’t sure if two nights would be short enough. I wasn’t sure what our host was painting on the future of his canvas.
There is a reason for everything. Van Gogh moved from Paris to southern France in 1888 for the light—the brilliant, soft Mediterranean light in which he desired. It made him happy and drew him outdoors where he preferred to do his paintings and use color to his advantage. In a letter to his brother Theo, he told of his new relationship: “…colour expresses something in itself, one cannot do without this, one must use it…the result is more beautiful than the exact imitation of the things themselves” (
Walter, pg. 522).
Once in the south, van Gogh worked with a relentless
Rocks, Walls, and Towers
Local stones of Les Baux's whispering yards focus “during which he would either kneel on his canvases and paint horizontally or lash his easel to iron stakes he had driven deep into the ground” (
Lonely Planet, pg. 803). The light of the region, the turquoise blue of the Mediterranean waters and the pleasant air of the pastoral lifestyle kept him calm but stirred, kept him reserved but loose, while he wallowed in his artistic creativity.
It took ten minutes to walk Les Baux. We saw everything, and in the cold of winter, little was moving. We had the village to ourselves. The four of us looked at each other, we shrugged, and we hopped in the car, exiting our fortified asylum. Down the plateau and through the center of the Alpilles we headed for St-Remy.
Before we reached town, on our right coming down route D-5, the monastery of St-Paul-de-Mausole was fed from the road. Peering as we passed a forested path, I could see it was empty except for the gardens where a group of children played on the lawns. This was home to Vincent van Gogh, his private hospital where he sought refuge from the outside. Surrounded by ancient Roman ruins,
The Siege
By night, the mistral and its owners fly. the grounds felt old, eerie amidst the winter silence and the old relics of the ages. We kept driving.
In 1890, van Gogh left St-Remy and headed north back toward Paris. He chose to stay close to a friend, Dr. Paul Gachet, in the town of Auvers-sur-Oise (
Walter, pg 522). He lived in an attic above a café, but spent his time either outdoors painting or with his friend (and personal doctor). Despite the care given by Dr. Gachet, whose patrons included painters Pissarro and Cezanne, van Gogh sunk further into the turmoil of his own mind. Within months of his arrival, he shot himself.
Our two nights passed. Within Les Baux there was little to do but sit, stand, or walk and gaze at the ruins above us and breathe the ancient ghost-like air of this hillside town set in the Middle Ages. It was the dead of winter. It was calm and reserved, but we could only take so much as our stirring minds let loose their reins. We were ready to move.
For breakfast on our final day, our host brought us fresh baguettes from an unknown
boulangerie. We ran into him
as we loaded our car, his cracked smile gleaming with an air of odd embarrassment spread with madness. He was an artist, as was van Gogh. He had admitted he and his family into the exiled Les Baux; a small isolated stand in the Alpilles. One artist had gone mad, and the other—he just might. Likewise, I was capable, as was my family. But we were traveling, stopping through, and with gratitude for the temporal pleasantries of Le Prince Noir, our host, and the seclusion of Les Baux, we passed onward with our journey through the Alpilles of southern France. We were sane…for the time being. Les Baux and its inhabitants remained questionable.
Walter, Ingo F.
Masterpieces of Western Art. TASCHEN, 2002. 757 pages.
Lonely Planet.
France. 2005. 964 pages.
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