Van Gogh in Auvers

Thanks for posting. I’d seen a summary earlier but couldn’t access the article. Van Gogh has been my favorite painter since childhood. We enjoyed walking through Arles and standing where it’s thought he stood when painting several of his works.

I found the linked story interesting, other Van Gogh fan-atics might also.
Was at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam a couple years ago, which speculated about which painting was his last.

Thanks for posting the interesting article. I have been a fan of Van Gogh since childhood. My parents took me to see the exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum. Years later I enjoyed visiting Arles and most recently the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Wonderful museum!

Janis -- Was this the Van Gogh in Seattle in the 50s? If so that was my first introduction to Van Gogh. My family was not really engaged with art or music -- yet we did see that and it triggered a lifelong interest in art, just as my English teacher taking me to Judith Anderson in Medea began my love of theater. And the Seattle symphony had $15 season tickets for students and I got those during college. They were terrible seats -- first row -- but for an unsophisticated audience member being able to see the first violist snuffling like a deranged rabbit as he played and other visually interesting elements was an added bonus.

Auvers sur Oise is a wonderful day trip -- we did it on a Saturday with the direct train from Paris and felt we could have used a couple more hours -- loved the town and the Van Gogh sites.

So touching are the side-by-side graves of Vincent and Theo.

Janet, yes it was 1959 when we went to the Seattle Art Museum in it's prior location at Volunteer Park. Looking back I read 126,110 people attended the Van Gogh exhibit. In those days, the admission was normally free, but Van Gogh visitors had to fork over 75 cents to help defray the $25,000 cost of bringing the exhibit to town. In addition it was the first time the museum had audio guides. They only had 15 available! We frequented the Museum over the years. We lived in the neighborhood. Do you recall the Camel Statues out front?

I made a day trip to Auvers sur Oise last October. As a life long van Gogh lover it felt like a pilgrimage.
I highly recommend it.
The accompanying photographs with this article are beautiful.

In 1984 and 1987 , respectively , The Metropolitan Museum here in NYC held two major shows - " Van Gogh in Arles " , and " Van Gogh in St. Remy and Auvers " . The catalogs , though out of print , are still available on Amazon , reasonably priced , for anyone who is interested . They were great exhibitions , and The Met owns a number of paintings in the permanent collection , if one makes a visit to New York .

Gnarled though the roots may be, that painting certainly isn’t as ominous as the stark one with the crows over the wheat field. The murder theory still sounds valid, and it would be nice, despite Van Gogh’s tragic death, if he’d had a pleasant last day, painting a scene that inspired him.

Thank you, steven, for sharing the link! The art lives on!

I enjoyed the painting locations around Arles and St. Remy. I'd seen the paintings of mountains up by St. Remy and thought they looked like bizarre hallucinations. When I saw the actual hills he painted, I realized they were a fairly accurate representation of the bizarre looking hills in the area.

Today is the 130th anniversary of Van Gogh's death;
this was in the Writer's Almanac:
"Vincent van Gogh died on this date in 1890. He had shot himself in the chest in a wheat field two days before, and he managed to make it home to his own bed. When he was found, he allegedly said, "I shot myself ... I only hope I haven't botched it," and all he would tell police was, "What I have done is nobody else's business. I am free to do what I like with my own body." The doctor decided not to remove the bullet, and his brother Theo was sent for. He rushed from Paris to his brother's bedside and reported van Gogh's last words were "The sadness will go on forever." Van Gogh's friend and fellow painter Emile Bernard wrote about the funeral:

"The sun was terribly hot outside. We climbed the hill outside Auvers talking about him, about the daring impulse he had given to art, of the great projects he was always thinking about, and about the good he had done to all of us. We reached the cemetery, a small new cemetery strewn with new tombstones. It is on the little hill above the fields that were ripe for harvest under the wide blue sky that he would still have loved ... perhaps.

Then he was lowered into the grave. ... Anyone would have started crying at that moment ... the day was too much made for him for one not to imagine that he was still alive and enjoying it ..."

Experts have argued over the exact nature of his mental illness for nearly a century, variously blaming schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, paint poisoning, and syphilis. His condition, whatever it was, was probably made worse by insomnia, overwork, malnutrition, and drink. He was virtually unknown at the time of his death, and is now one of the most recognized artists of any period. His art is so bound up with the public perception of him as a struggling, tormented, even tragic artist that it's nearly impossible to separate his work from his myth."

I've mentioned before that you can get a feel for his plein aire work by wandering the fields beside the abbey of Montmajour, just a few kilometers outside of Arles; the abbey also hosts temporary art exhibits.

Barbra, regarding your question on how to get there, here it is:
https://www.maisondevangogh.fr/en/auvers.php

BY TRAIN FROM PARIS
Journey time: approximately 1 hour

Take a train from Saint-Lazare or Gare du Nord, direction Pontoise. Change at Pontoise for Persan-Beaumont, get off at Auvers (250 meters from Ravoux Inn)

Train times: www.transilien.com

Re today's anniversary of Van Gogh's death:
A visit to St. Remy (asylum) in the south of France is, uhm, memorable. You can walk into his room/cell and look through the barred window at the view he had from there; those mountains on the horizon look familiar, you've seen them before, in his paintings.
When he wasn't having seizures, they'd let him out of the asylum--there's a several mile long path winding through the country near the asylum, and at certain spots there are a dozen beautiful exhibits or "plaques", each showing the painting he did when he set up at that spot in 1889. The views have not changed much since 1889 and so your view is pretty much what he saw--it will bring tears to your eyes.

' your view is pretty much what he saw--it will bring tears to your eyes. " Kent , that's just what it did to me , when I walked that path several years ago

And the 2017 movie Loving Vincent, the first fully painted animated film.

Denny , Thanks for the heads up . This film looks intriguing , and as I love cinema , I just ordered it .

I'm not much of a movie fan but I loved Loving Vincent!

I’m not a big movie fan either Pam, but I really enjoyed this as well. For others who may be interested, I got my copy from our local library. Beautiful to watch, moving story. Stay safe all.

Janis -- yes I had forgotten those camels. I grew up in the PNW and it was noted for its lack of any serious art museums -- the old Volunteer Park Museum was pretty much it. I live in Chicago now and that is one of the great pleasures here -- great art whenever you want it - and theater, and dining etc. I remember the 59 Van Gogh exhibit focussed on the Potato Eaters which in retrospect is not among his greatest works but we were mesmerized then by the countless sketches done building to that piece. Seattle has come along way.

I remember the exhibit about 30 years ago of Chinese artifacts from Xian -- first time I saw the warriors and horses. My kids were quite young but were thrilled with it. I had a wonderful poster from that exhibit which I had in my entry for decades but alas was damaged on our last move. It was black with the face of one of the warriors.

Later when I visited China for my job, my husband and I spend a few days in Xian and saw the warriors among other amazing treasures of that town (including the final base of Chaing Kai Shek).

We enjoyed "At Eternity's Gate." It was the 2018 biographical drama film of Van Gogh's final years. It was premiered at the Venice International Film Festival when we were there. Willem Dafoe immersed himself in the artist's life, learning to paint, reading his letters and shooting on location in Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône & Auvers-sur-Oise. Dafoe was 62 at the time of filming, 25 years older than Van Gogh when he died.

To add to Mary's directions -- the Navigo weekly pass covered the entire cost of the trip so no additional tickets were needed.