Expertise Van Gogh’s last weeks—via a blockbuster exhibition in Paris

The primary-ever exhibition on Van Gogh’s interval in Auvers-sur-Oise has opened in Paris, on the Musée d’Orsay. Through the summer time it was offered on the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, attracting 583,000 guests. Much more are anticipated in Paris, so it would get properly over 1m within the two venues, placing it among the many world’s hottest reveals of the yr.

Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: The Last Months (till 4 February 2024) contains 47 of the 74 surviving work he accomplished within the village, which lies 30 kilometres north west of Paris. Arriving on 20 Might 1890 from the asylum in Provence, he lived in Auvers for 70 days, finishing an image a day in a rare burst of power. It is rather unlikely that any future exhibition could have such a complete assortment of the Auvers work.

The Musée d’Orsay exhibition curator Emmanuel Coquery has even succeeded in reassembling 11 of the 13 giant “double-square” work which Van Gogh made over the last 4 weeks of his life, earlier than his demise on 29 July 1890. These panoramic works have come from collections in Amsterdam, Basel, Cardiff, Cincinnati, Dallas, London and Vienna (the lacking two are one in Hiroshima and one other in Basel). They embody his final image—the astonishingly daring Tree Roots (Van Gogh Museum, July 1890), painted on the very day that he shot himself.

Nearly all of the “double squares” depict the huge wheatfields on the plateau above the village, devoid of individuals, some underneath threatening skies. Seeing them within the Musée d’Orsay present, one feels the sense of isolation that Vincent suffered – and which helps to clarify the fateful determination to finish his life.

On 10 July 1890, a fortnight or so earlier than he picked up the gun, Vincent wrote to his brother Theo that he had depicted “immense stretches of wheatfields underneath turbulent skies, and I made some extent of attempting to precise unhappiness, excessive loneliness”.

A lot new analysis has gone into the Amsterdam-Paris present. Among the many surprises is the invention of some very early frames for Van Gogh works. These had been commissioned by Dr Paul Gachet, the artist’s closest buddy in Auvers, and one has a label on the reverse displaying that it was on a portray in a 1905 exhibition. It’s seemingly that the frames with barely bevelled edges date from 1890 and it’s even doable that they had been made to the design of Van Gogh himself, who favoured easy wood surrounds over ornate gilded ones. In 1905 Gachet’s son wrote that their frames had been the bevelled ones utilized by Van Gogh.

The Gachet frames had been inherited by the physician’s son, who in round 1950 gave them to a neighbour, Florent Giordano, whose son donated them to Dominique-Charles Janssens, the proprietor of the inn the place Van Gogh had died. Janssens has now lent one of many frames to the Musée d’Orsay exhibition and replicas had been then made for 4 of the Van Goghs which had as soon as been owned by Dr Gachet.

It’s revealing to match the Gachet body with the ornate one which the Musée d’Orsay had used on Thatched Cottages in Cordeville, Auvers-sur-Oise (Might-June 1890) till the present exhibition. The ornate body is distracting and seems to constrict the portray. The easy wood body permits the portray to “breathe”, making the panorama appear extra open.

For these going to the Paris exhibition, I’d totally suggest a day journey to Auvers (about one hour by prepare), the “village of artists”. Earlier than Van Gogh’s arrival, it was as soon as house to the marginally earlier panorama painters Charles-François Daubigny, Camille Pissarro and Paul Cezanne. Afterwards quite a few later artists adopted in Van Gogh’s footsteps.

Probably the most transferring website in Auvers is the inn the place Van Gogh lodged, the Auberge Ravoux, the place one can go to the modest bed room the place he slept—and died. The room is left empty, apart from a easy chair. For Van Gogh, empty chairs symbolised the departed. Small numbers of holiday makers are allowed into the room on excursions. Janssens, who acquired the inn in 1987, describes his guests as “not likely vacationers, however pilgrims”.

5 minutes’ stroll away is the church, the topic of one in all Van Gogh’s most interesting Auvers work. And 5 minutes additional on is the cemetery, the place Vincent is buried subsequent to his expensive brother Theo. Their twin graves are coated with a blanket of ivy, one in all Vincent’s favorite crops.

There are additionally three different key websites in Auvers. The Maison Gachet, the home of Van Gogh’s buddy, reopens this weekend, with a wholly contemporary redisplay. Gachet was a captivating character – a physician, collector and beginner artist – and a go to to his house tells the story of his extraordinary life.

Between the Maison Gachet and the Auberge Ravoux lies the Château d’Auvers, an imposing 1635 mansion which since 1994 had housed a multi-media presentation on the Impressionists. It has now been reconfigured to focus purely on Van Gogh. For true artwork lovers, Van Gogh: the final Journeys additionally contains some authentic work—not by Van Gogh, however largely modest works by artists whom he admired or who depicted Auvers scenes. It too reopens this weekend after a refurbishment. Each the Maison Gachet and the Château displays have been overseen by the Van Gogh specialist Wouter van der Veen.

And eventually, there’s a new attraction: the precise roots and stumps which characteristic in Van Gogh’s portray Tree Roots. In 2020 Van der Veen was astonished to discover a postcard of round 1910 which appeared to indicate the identical roots as within the portray. On visiting the spot, he realised that these exact same roots survive. Vegetation has been cleared away and the roots are actually protected by fencing. The roots might be considered from the road in Rue Daubigny, close to quantity 46, and excursions simply contained in the property are actually organised.

Visiting Auvers, it’s straightforward to grasp why it attracted Van Gogh and his fellow artists. The ambiance on the “vieille Route” (outdated highway, now renamed Rue Daubigny) and within the fields on the plateau simply above the village stay very a lot as they had been in 1890, though the outdated thatched cottages have lengthy gone.

It’s revealing to match Van Gogh’s panorama work within the Musée d’Orsay exhibition with the picturesque countryside round Auvers. A number of locations the place he labored might be seen right this moment (similar to Church at Auvers and Tree Roots), whereas different work so brilliantly seize the ambiance.

Van Gogh all the time most well-liked to work exterior, in entrance of the motif which impressed him. However in Auvers he by no means slavishly depicted a scene. Utilizing inventive licence, he allowed his creativeness free rein to create his masterpieces.

• For extra on the story of the artist’s final months, see my ebook Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame.

Different Van Gogh information:

London’s Nationwide Gallery will likely be holding a serious exhibition subsequent yr to have a good time its 2 hundredth anniversary: Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers (14 September 2024-19 January 2025). Key loans will embody two masterpieces painted in Provence: the Rhône scene Starry Evening (October 1888, Musée d’Orsay, Paris) and a model of The Bed room (September 1889, Artwork Institute of Chicago).