2023-09-24 16:51:00
The “Tree Roots” that Vincent van Gogh painted just before shooting himself in the chest on July 27, 1890, are still there, pointed out to visitors in the heart of an alley in Auvers-sur-Oise (Val of Oise).
With an easel under his arm, he borrowed it many times, directly above the Ravoux inn, where he died two days later, at the age of 37, after a long agony, Wouter Van der Veen told a few journalists, Dutch specialist of the painter, taking them on his very last steps through this village about thirty km from Paris.
Houses, landscapes, town hall square… As soon as he arrived, on May 20, 1890, in this crucible of impressionism, on the banks of the river, he painted “in a hurry”, “more than 74 paintings in 70 days” where “blue dominates,” he says.
Van Gogh arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise on medical recommendation and that of his younger brother Théo, an art dealer.
He is “aware of his value as an artist but also of his fragility: he cut off his ear in Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône), encountered death, and was hospitalized after several suicide attempts by poisoning with alcohol. “turpentine and probably colors containing arsenic”, specifies the expert.
“He feels threatened but also thinks a lot about life: Johanna, Théo’s wife, has just given birth to little Vincent, and an article published in the Mercure de France praises his genius, compared to that of the Dutch masters , a recognition he expected,” he adds.
Dr. Gachet
Direction its very first destination: the house of Doctor Paul Ferdinand Gachet, in a small street lined with millstones.
Fond of art more than medicine, he has his own engraving press and “will disseminate without reservation the work of the painter” to whom he suggests as the only treatment to “leave the obsession with the disease”, according to Mr. Van der Veen .
The red-haired painter, with clear eyes, immediately recognizes in this man “a friend” and a “brother”, a great collector known throughout Paris, emphasizing their physical resemblance in his countless letters to Théo, his most faithful friend.
At the back of the house, surrounded by a flower garden, emotional sequence: a small mound between two lime trees where Van Gogh sat with the doctor and his friends, Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro and Armand Guillaumin, around a absinthe and smoking a pipe.
Calligraphies, traced at the entrance to a small cave, recall the impressionists’ passion for Japanese prints.
On October 7, Dr Gachet’s house, a former girls’ school, will be open to the public as well as an exhibition at the Château d’Auvers-sur-Oise, in the form of a digital tour of Van Gogh’s works in very high definition.
For “security reasons, essentially”, the village no longer has any paintings by Van Gogh, whose popularity soared after his death, according to the expert.
“Wheat field with crows”
Destination the church, where South Korean tourists take photos. Van Gogh sublimated it into a format giving the illusion of 3D: a symphony of blue, contrasted with orange and vibrant greens.
Not far away, there is room for contemplation: the ivy-covered tomb where the painter rests next to Théo, who died six months after him of syphilis.
A dirt road, lined with wilted amaranths, leads to the place where Van Gogh painted his “Wheatfield with Crows”. Very close: the one where he killed himself.
The trip ends at the Ravoux inn which still houses the painter’s tiny room, austere and dark, without furniture today, where Van Gogh lived “modestly but not in poverty”, according to Mr. Van der Veen.
In the dining room, where everything seems to have remained intact, a bouquet of sunflowers welcomes visitors.
“Van Gogh’s coffin, covered with yellow dahlias” was stored there “in the middle of his paintings”, confides the specialist, curator of an exhibition dedicated to the last days of the painter which will open on October 3 at the Musée d’Orsay.
09/24/2023 4:49:48 p.m. – Auvers-sur-Oise (France) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
#steps #Vincent #van #Gogh #AuverssurOise