Discovering Van Gogh on a cruise through France
<p>The Greeks settled it as early as the sixth century BC. Emperor Julius Caesar established it as a Roman colony. And one of his successors Constantine the Great named it his second capital, "the little Rome of the Gauls".</p>
<p>The south-eastern French town of Arles – the self-styled gateway to the vast wetlands and wildlife of the Camargue – may not be as popular with travellers today as, say, nearby Avignon and Aix-en-Provence.</p>
<p>But it still boasts some of the region's greatest attractions: vivid reminders of a visitor who spent barely a year in the town – and an increasingly unruly, unhappy and unfulfilled year at that – Dutch-born painter Vincent van Gogh.</p>
<p>For a comprehensive exhibition and high-tech explanation of his work, admirers must join the long queues outside the magnificent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.</p>
<p>But for an insight into the dramatic life and times of the artist, the colourful landscape that inspired him and the pressures that ultimately unhinged him, nothing beats a walk round Arles and the surrounding, Provencal countryside.</p>
<p>Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888. Exhausted by the pressures of Paris and depressed by its bitter winter, he planned to create a "studio of the south", with similarly temperamental friends such as Paul Gauguin.</p>
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<p>Quite what attracted him to jump from a south-bound train and settle in the notoriously "tawdry town" of Arles is a mystery.</p>
<p>Perhaps, as Martin Gayford, author of the must-read book The Yellow House – the name of the artists' ill-fated studio, suggests, it was pure, characteristic whim.</p>
<p>Van Gogh, he writes, expected to spend a few months painting portraits, probably in brothels, before moving on. "Instead, he was instantly fascinated by the possibilities of the area." Its sun, its light, its dark, its vivid colours.</p>
<p>Within months, however, his grand design had turned from sunflowery day into a starry, starry nightmare, as the ill-matched artists clashed.</p>
<p>It culminated in van Gogh infamously chopping off a bit of his own ear with a razor, or – a more recent theory – having it severed by a sword-swinging Gauguin.</p>
<p>Within months, Gauguin had left Arles, and the "mad redhead" had been transferred by his long-suffering brother Theo into a psychiatric hospital in nearby Saint Remy de Provence.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Yellow House, the centrepiece of his frantic activity – when he was not busy in the fields, or boozing in the town brothels – was destroyed, during the Second World War by Allied bombers.</p>
<p>Fortunately, he left behind more than some 300 paintings and drawings of the countryside around Arles; its vibrant canals and rivers, bridges and boats, flatlands lands and towering, blue skies, farm labourers and "working" women.</p>
<p>Though most of the pictures are in the Amsterdam gallery, their settings remain unspoilt and surprisingly evocative.</p>
<p>Since my last visit, about a decade ago, famous architect Frank Gehry has completed a fascinating Vincent van Gogh cultural centre, dedicated to the work, life and legacy of the artist.</p>
<p>New "then and now" interpretive, information boards, have also been erected at key places, allowing visitors to compare the real, 21st-century place with the artist's interpretations.</p>
<p>For example, a 10-minute walk from the downtown cultural and visitor centres are Les Alyscamps, or "Elysian Fields", an ancient, crumbling Roman necropolis painted repeatedly by the two artists.</p>
<p>After being "lost" over the years in a maze of factories and railway lines, abandoned to lovers and litterers, the quiet burial ground has been restored.</p>
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<p>Now as then, the poplar trees and long lines of sarcophagi offer a place of relaxation and reflection, instantly recognisable from the artists' paintings.</p>
<p>Of course, there is much, much more to see and enjoy in Arles, today a small, compact, laid-back, eminently tourist-friendly, town of barely 50,000 inhabitants.</p>
<p>On a bitter spring day when the "mistral" – a strong, north-westerly wind blew hard – we visited the must-see sights: the forum, the Roman Theatre, the Place de la Republique, the Romanesque church of St-Trophime, and the famous, first-century amphitheatre.</p>
<p>The gladiators, slaves, wind animals and criminals, who fought and died in the first-century stadium, may be long gone, but the towering, 25,000-seater still hosts bullfights, or "corridas".</p>
<p>To the dismay of some visitors, not all the bulls survive. "Not everyone approves," our guide says. "But right or wrong, it is still part of the local culture."</p>
<p>Van Gogh, it seems, confined himself to painting pictures of the crowds at "the bull games".</p>
<p>Some experts, however, suggest that, such was the impression on him, that he cut his own ear after observing the custom by which the victorious matador severed one ear of a defeated bull and, after showing it to the crowd, presented it to a lady.</p>
<p><em>Written by John Huxley. First appeared on <a href="http://Stuff.co.nz" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Stuff.co.nz</span></strong></a>.</em></p>
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