“The days of mistral and rain”

1. 1

   What is written

   Four letters, dated by the Van Gogh Museum and Huygens edition of the letters: Arles, June and July 1888; Saint-Rémy, September and October 1889.

   • Rain now and then in a morning or afternoon, but infinitely less than at home.Letter 653, to Willemien van Gogh, Arles, 31 July 1888
   • the people here are complaining a great deal that it’s not the same as usual.Letter 653, the same page
   • It’s very windy, though, and a very nasty, nagging wind, the mistralLetter 653, the same page
   • afterwards, when the days of mistral and rain came, I preferred the canvas done from lifeLetter 806, to Theo van Gogh, Saint-Rémy, 28 September 1889, on his two versions of the Reaper
   • when the weather’s cold and sadLetter 806, the same paragraph
2. 2

   Records of those days

   • Saint-Rémy rain gaugeDaily rain in whole millimetres, printed in Pluies en France 1889. The volume does not say where in the town; the town centre is 1.4 km from the asylum.
   • Arles, Tour de la RoquetteMétéo-France daily rain, lowest and highest temperature. 0.5 km from Arles, 20.4 km from the asylum.
   • Beaucaire and AramonMétéo-France daily rain, 16.0 and 17.6 km from the asylum.
   • Marseille ObservatoireWind direction and force six times a day, printed in the Annales du Bureau central météorologique. 74 km from Arles, 69 km from the asylum.

   Not found or not yet searched

   • No wind was measured at Arles or Saint-Rémy in 1888 or 1889; Météo-France wind records there begin in 1949.
   • No sunshine or cloud record for Arles or Saint-Rémy has been found.
   • The painting sessions the letters describe are undated.
3. 3

   Each claim tested

   • “Rain now and then in a morning or afternoon”. Arles recorded rain on 6 of the 31 days of July 1888, 3 of them with at least 1 mm. Daily totals cannot show mornings or afternoons, and no Dutch record was used for “less than at home”.
   • “not the same as usual”. June and July 1888 were the wettest, 225.1 mm, and by afternoon highs the coolest of 17 summers at Arles, 1882–1898. A typical (median) summer had 64.7 mm.
   • “a very nasty, nagging wind, the mistral”. No wind was measured at Arles. At Marseille, 8 days of July 1888 meet the Nephos mistral rule (at least three of the six daily readings from north to west-north-west at force 3 or more on the observatory’s scale), the last on 28 July.
   • “the days of mistral and rain”, after the repetition was finished on 5 or 6 September. Saint-Rémy’s gauge printed a point, no rain, on every day from 5 to 30 September 1889, after 8 mm printed for the 4th. Les Baux, Beaucaire and Aramon were dry from 5 to 28 September; Arles, 20 km away, had 0.8 mm on the 21st. At Marseille, 14, 15, 21 and 26 September meet the mistral rule.
   • “cold and sad”. At Arles the lowest readings fell from 13.8–20.5 °C before 16 September to 7.2–13.5 °C after it; afternoons still reached 18.9–28.0 °C.
   • “out in the mistral”, “the day in the full sun” (letter 633) and the canvas laid flat or the easel buried in stones (letters 653 and 809). The sessions are undated or describe a habit, and no wind or sunshine was recorded where he worked.
4. 4

   Verdict

   Saint-Rémy’s own rain gauge stayed dry from 5 to 30 September 1889, the weeks letter 806 remembers as “days of mistral and rain”.

   • Contradicts“the days of mistral and rain”: the rain The town’s gauge recorded no rain in those weeks. The verdict rests on the edition’s dating of letters 800 and 806.
   • Partially agrees“the days of mistral and rain”: the mistral Mistral-type days at Marseille fit; no wind was measured at Saint-Rémy.
   • Partially agrees“Rain now and then” A few July days had rain at Arles; the time of day and the comparison with home cannot be tested.
   • Partially agrees“not the same as usual” The wettest and coolest summer in 17 years at Arles; the complaint does not say what was unusual.
   • Partially agrees“a very nasty, nagging wind, the mistral” Mistral-type days at Marseille fit; no wind was measured at Arles.
   • Partially agrees“cold and sad” Nights turned cold after 16 September at Arles; “sad” cannot be tested.
   • Unknown“out in the mistral”, “the day in the full sun”, the canvas laid flat, the easel in the stones Undated sessions and habits, with no wind or sunshine record where he worked.

What this cannot tell you. Marseille stands in for a regional mistral, not the wind where Van Gogh stood. The mistral rule is a Nephos reading of the printed tables, not an official definition; a different rule would count different days. Letter 806’s date and the finishing of the repetition come from the edition’s reconstruction. If either moved by more than a few days, the rain verdict would fall to Unknown. The Saint-Rémy and Marseille figures were read by eye from page images and checked twice; the Arles, Beaucaire and Aramon figures come from Météo-France files.