Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
1889, at Saint-Rémy
The record dates Corridor in the asylum to 1889 and names the building in the title. That combination is what makes the entry easy to place: 1889 is the year the chronology moves to Saint-Rémy, and five works in this catalogue name an asylum, all of them dated 1889. Fifteen more name Saint-Paul or a hospital, fourteen of those dated 1889 as well.
What the record gives
The work measures 61 x 47.5 cm, an upright, and it is held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the same collection that holds The Starry Night; three works in this catalogue are recorded there. The measured palette resolves to yellow.
An interior, which is rare
Almost everything the record carries from 1889 is outdoors: olive groves, wheat fields, the hospital garden, mountains, cypresses. Interiors are the exception, and the ones there are name the building they belong to — a corridor, an entrance hall, a ward. Read as a sequence, the titles of 1889 describe a working radius that has contracted to a set of rooms and an enclosed garden. That is a statement about the record, not a diagnosis, and this catalogue does not go past it.
