In February 1888, Vincent van Gogh left Paris, where he had been living for a couple of years, and headed for the city of Arles in Provence, in southern France. Exhausted by his time in the metropolis, and eager to recover some self-composure, he was seeking a simpler life that, he hoped, would revitalise both himself and his art.
Source: Van Gogh and Japan: the prints that shaped the artist