Explore the Portrait of a patient about the Portraits of this artwork.
While in Saint-Paul, Van Gogh wrote of other patients and their support for one another, "Though here there are some patients very seriously ill, the fear and horror of madness that I used to have has already lessened a great deal.  And though here you continually hear terrible cries and howls like beasts in a menagerie, in spite of that people get to know each other very well and help each other when their attacks come on."Van Gogh wrote of a portrait he began in October 1889, "At the moment I am working on a portrait of one of the patients here.  It is odd that when you have spent some time with them and have got used to them, you no longer think of them as mad."