It was at Arles, the small city in the south of France where he stayed from early in 1888 to the spring of 1889, that Vincent van Gogh had his first real bout with madness. After a quarrel with Paul Gauguin, he cut off part of his ear. Yet Arles was also the scene of an astonishing burst of creativity. Over the short span of 15 months, van Gogh produced some 200 paintings and more that 100 drawings and watercolors, a record that only Picasso has matched in the modern era. Orchards and wheat fields under the glowing sun, neighbors and townspeople, interiors of the Yellow House where he lived, were all subjects of his frenetic brush. The Arles canvases, alive with color- vermillion, emerald green, the Prussian bled and a particularly brilliant yellow- have intensity of feeling that mark the high point of his career, and deeply affected the work of artists...