2023-05-01 16:37:03
His Provençal paintings have left their mark on people’s minds so much that we sometimes forget that van Gogh’s art has its roots in his native Brabant. This region, where he created almost a quarter of his production and his first masterpiece, The potato eatersfully understood the advantage she could derive from the fascination aroused by the painter.
For several years, it has undertaken to highlight the places frequented by the artist, in his youth and then around his thirties, when he returned to live with his parents, before his definitive exile in France.
Nine sites visited by van Gogh in his youth
Connected by cycle paths, the sites, scattered over nine towns and villages, are of unequal interest for art lovers, but are sources of delight for lovers of nature and picturesque architecture (water mills, houses in the thatch roof…).
Thus in Zundert, near Breda, not far from the Belgian border, the presbytery where the painter was born on March 30, 1853 – completely rebuilt in 1903 – offers an itinerary made up of period engravings and video projections.
In Zundert (Netherlands), the presbytery where Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, offers a tour made up of period engravings and video projections. / Ernst Wagensveld/Brabant press
The neighboring Protestant church, a pretty brick building built in 1806, is “99% authentic”, according to the local guide. Its interior decoration, reduced to the essentials, gives an idea of the austerity in which Vincent, son and grandson of a pastor, grew up. The adjacent cemetery houses the grave of his older brother, stillborn a year to the day before his birth and whose first name he bore.
Only one year at the municipal school
In this predominantly Catholic rural province, Protestant families live withdrawn into themselves and little Vincent, introverted and solitary, only goes to the municipal school for one year, attended by the children of peasants whose manners are considered too boorish by his bourgeois family. A basic education was given to him at home by a governess who introduced him to drawing, before he left at the age of 11 for boarding school.
Five years later, the teenager began as an apprentice with one of his three art dealer uncles. Sent to The Hague, then to London and Paris, he discovered a trade which quickly repugnant him and from which he resigned in 1876. After a few years studying theology in the hope of becoming a preacher, van Gogh decided, at the age of 27 , to embrace the career of an artist.
It is under this name that it is registered in 1881 in the register of the municipality of Etten. During his eight-month stay, Vincent practices, with touching awkwardness, drawing with pencil and pen the peasants busy with their daily work, in the spirit of Jean-François Millet, whom he admires.
In Etten-Leur (Netherlands), the Protestant church features colorful stained glass windows that pay homage to the painter Vincent van Gogh. / Pierre van Damme/Brabant press
Looking for “rough faces with low foreheads and thick lips”
But difficult to convince his models not to pose in their Sunday clothes. As he explained in one of his letters to his brother Theo (he would write him more than 650 in eighteen years), he was not looking for “clean beauty” but “rough faces with low foreheads and thick lips”.
When he’s not roaming the moor to crunch the rows of poplars and birches with gnarled trunks, Vincent van Gogh spends hours in the huts with dirt floors, which he compares to the nests of birds he collects. He feels better alongside the miserable farm laborers and weavers than with his parents, who are constantly irritated by his sloppy outfits and his inability to find an honorable wife and job.
The Van Gogh Village Museum, which has just opened its doors in Nuenen, brings to life these years of rebellion and formation through period objects and reproductions. To see original works, you have to go to ‘s-Hertogenbosch where The Noordbrabants Museum keeps twelve drawings and paintings by the artist. Alongside landscapes and cottages in earthy hues, the vibrant portrait of a peasant woman with a white headdress stares at us with intensity. Van Gogh has not yet discovered the colors of Provence, but the power of his humanity is already bursting out.
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The main steps
À Zundert, is his birthplace, which hosts artists in residence every month, the temple where Vincent’s father officiated and the cemetery.
In Etten-Leur, the Protestant church whose colored stained glass windows pay homage to the painter.
In Opwetten, a delightful watermill painted by van Gogh.
Nuenen home to the Van Gogh Village museum, the charming little Protestant church and the outdoor trail around the places painted by van Gogh.
In ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The (« Le ») Noordbrabants Museum.
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