Saint Paul de Mausole Monastery in Provence

Saint Paul de Mausole - statue of Van Gogh

The Van Gogh room

Veritable masterpiece
of Provençal Romanesque art, the Saint Paul monastery,

built in the neighbourhood of the Gallo-Roman site of Glanum owes its name Mausolé to the proximity of the mausoleum of the "Julii"; it rises up out of the landscape thanks to its beautiful two-storey square steeple topped by a pyramidal roof.

The covered walk goes around a finely maintained garden giving the stones all their grandeur.

Saint Paul de Mausole remains today a psychiatric health institution :
- The Maison de Santé Saint-Paul ; a short-stay psychiatric clinic with 67 beds.
- The specialized establishment of the IRIS treating 38 mentally handicapped residents.
- The EHPAO Les Oliviers taking in 27 dependant elderly persons, with a day reception of 5 places.

The tour of the parts open to the public is subject to the respect of the tranquility of the place.

In the former chapter houses and the Romanesque stairwell, you can see a permanent exhibition of works for sale, made by the patients at the art therapy studio Valetudo.

From the top of the stairs you can see the wheat field that Vincent Van Gogh contemplated and painted during his year of confinement in the men's pavilion.

Upstairs, a room recounts the history of the Saint Paul Mental Hospital.

Continuing to the right, you will find a reproduction of the room where Van Gogh was confined.

Across from it, another room explains psychiatry in the 19th century.