Gauguin joined Van Gogh in Arles in October of 1888 and unexpectedly left in December of 1888, a reaction motivated Van Gogh's breakdown, where he cut off a piece of his ear with a razor. After his return from the hospital in January, Van Gogh continued working on a painting of the wife of the postmaster Joseph Roulin, Van Gogh actually produced five versions of Madame Roulin each portrait identical except for madame roulin, she shown holding the rope that rocks her newborn daughter's cradle. He envisioned her portrait as the middle painting of a set of three on a wall, her portrait being the best of the three. For Van Gogh, her image was mesmerizing, to him she was the perfect madonna; painted in the most extravagant of hues, Van Gogh was quoted as saying it "sang a lullaby in colors," outlining the important role of rich color in his …show more content…
His initial detention to the hospital is shown in his imagery, through the depictions of its hallways to the flowers of its walled garden, visible from his room. Outside the walls of the hospital, he painted the surrounding countryside, which he said was "characteristic of Provence." In June, he made two paintings of cypresses, painted in thick impastoed layers of paint. Cypresses, who represent death and immortality engaged the young artist, figure prominently in a landscape produced the same month, Wheat Field with Cypresses. In the “wheat field with cypresses” Van Gogh described wheat as "the germinating force" in the cycle of life and the creative process. At Saint-Rémy, he also made copies of paintings by artists like Rembrandt, Millet, Delacroix. In the fall and winter of 1889–90, Van Gogh painted twenty one copies after Millet ; he thought of his copies as "interpretations" or "improvisations," basically saying he was a musician playing another composer's