Houses at Auvers | |
---|---|
Artist | Vincent van Gogh |
Year | Auvers-sur-Oise, June 1890 |
Catalogue | |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 73 cm× 61 cm(19.7 in× 40.6 in) |
Location | Toledo Museum of Art |
Houses at Auvers is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh. It was created towards the end of May or beginning of June 1890, shortly after he had moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town northwest of Paris, France.
His move was prompted by his dissatisfaction with the boredom and monotony of asylum life at Saint-Rémy, as well as by his emergence as an artist of some renown following Albert Aurier's celebrated January 1890, Mercure de France, review of his work.
In his final two months at Saint-Rémy, van Gogh painted from memory a number of canvases he called, "reminisces of the North," harking back to his Dutch roots. The influence of this return to the North continued at Auvers, notably in F789, The Church at Auvers . He did not, however, repeat his studies of peasant life of the sort he had made in his Nuenen period. His paintings of dwellings at Auvers encompassed a range of social domains.
Vincent van Gogh spent the early 1881–1885 years of his brief ten-year career as an artist painting in the Netherlands at Etten, The Hague, Drenthe, and Nuenen (his last family home). It was in Nuenen that Vincent executed F82, The Potato Eaters , which he considered his first really successful painting, while other early paintings of the time, such as F83, The Cottage (left), attest to his sympathy for peasants and their way of life. [1]
Following the death of his father in March 1885 and ensuing difficulties and quarrels with both his family and neighbours in Nuenen, Van Gogh moved first to Antwerp, Belgium, where he briefly studied at the Academy. Shortly thereafter, he joined his art dealer brother, Theo, in Paris, France, in March 1886. His move from Antwerp was motivated by worries about his health, after he suffered a breakdown earlier in the year. [2]
The two years he spent in Paris with his brother are the least documented of Vincent's career, simply because the main source for Vincent's life are the letters between them and, naturally, they did not correspond when together. [upper-alpha 1] Nevertheless, there are abundant sources to show that Vincent participated fully in the artistic life of the city, although never aligning himself with the Impressionist movement. In particular, he came into contact with Paul Gauguin, whom he idolized. By the end of the two-year period, relations between the brothers had soured somewhat and Vincent resolved to leave Paris and settle in Arles in the south of France, where he conceived the project of starting an artists' commune with Gauguin. [4]
Gauguin joined Vincent at The Yellow House in October 1888. However, Vincent's erratic behaviour and drunkenness alarmed Gauguin, and by December he had resolved to leave. Vincent suffered a severe nervous collapse as a result and was hospitalised. Despite making a speedy recovery, Vincent voluntarily entered an asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence on 9 May 1889, where he was able to continue painting between relapses of mania (his exact medical condition is not known with certainty). Perhaps his most loved and best known painting, F612 The Starry Night , dates from this time. It exemplifies the vigorous and agitated brush work he had developed. [5]
Vincent suffered his most severe relapse towards the end of February 1890. The following two months he was unable to paint and scarcely able even to write. He declared himself "totally stupefied" in his single letter of this period to Theo on 17 March . [L 1] Hulsker called it the saddest period of Vincent's life. Nevertheless, Vincent was able to draw and paint a little as he recovered. He described painting a few canvases from memory, which he had experimented with in F496 Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles) while painting with Gauguin, in a letter to Theo dated 29 April. [L 2] He called these paintings souvenirs du nord, "reminisces of the North." He mentions he might redo F83 The Cottage (above left) and F84 The Old Church Tower at Nuenen .
He is more explicit in a following letter to his mother and sister Willemien: "And while my illness was at its worst, I still painted, among other things a reminiscence of Brabant, cottages with mossy roofs and beech hedges on an autumn evening with a stormy sky, the sun setting red in reddish clouds." [L 3] This painting is identified by the Van Gogh Museum as either F673, F674, or F675 (right). Hulsker also singles out F695 Two Peasant Women Digging in the Snow and identifies a series of sketches depicting peasants, of which F1594r is an example, as dating from this time as well. He says these works, almost alone in Vincent's entire oeuvre, show unmistakable signs of mental collapse. [6] Finally he notes that F702: Worn Out – At Eternity's Gate , which Vincent made at this time, is likewise an unmistakable remembrance of times long past. The original was a drawing Vincent had made in The Hague. [7] [8]
Vincent ascribed this latest relapse to the boredom and monotony of life at the asylum. For months, he had been writing to Theo saying he wanted to leave the asylum. He felt sure that if he moved back to Paris he would get well quickly. [L 4] At the same time Vincent had become something of a celebrity in the art world following a very favourable review of his work by the critic Albert Aurier, who declared him a genius. [9] Despite his misgivings, Theo followed advice proffered by Camille Pissarro and arranged for Vincent to work at the village of Auvers-sur-Oise north of Paris under the supervision of Paul Ferdinand Gachet, a doctor. [10]
Auvers-sur-Oise was a medieval town about 15 miles northwest of the centre of Paris. It was only a few roads wide, but extended for miles along the river in both directions, vineyards and market gardens scattered all along its length. Its hamlets were a mix of clusters of thatched houses and farm enclosures. The French painter Charles-François Daubigny first moored his studio barge Botin there in the 1850s, and later purchased no less than three houses in the village as well as another nearby. [11] With the advent of a railway, the town became a tourist centre, its population swelling from 2,000 to 3,000 in the summer months. It attracted artists such as Corot, Cezanne and Pissarro, all seeking to capture its rustic charms. Dealers like Theo van Gogh sold thousands of their images. [12]
Auvers had consequently become a prosperous community. It was a model of Third Republic idealism regarding the modernization of the peasants: [13]
Auvers farmers worked their own land. Tenant farmers were rare, and most landowners employed day labourers only in the harvest season. The property was parcelled and passed on through inheritance or through private sales ... Steady, landed and industrious, wearing both peasant denim and the latest city styles, the Auvers farmers were, to vary Eugen Weber's phrase, "peasants become Frenchmen," ...
— Carol Zemel, Van Gogh's Progress: Utopia, Modernity, and Late-Nineteenth-Century Art
Van Gogh was alert to the change and the new modernity. Writing to Theo and Jo on 25 May, he remarked: [14] [L 5]
Here we’re far enough from Paris for it to be the real countryside, but nevertheless, how changed since Daubigny. But not changed in an unpleasant way, there are many villas and various modern and middle-class dwellings, very jolly, sunny and covered with flowers. That is the almost lush countryside, just at this moment of the development of a new society in the old one, has nothing disagreeable about it; there’s a lot of well-being in the air. I see or think I see a calm there à la Puvis de Chavannes, no factories, but beautiful greenery in abundance and in good order.
Van Gogh made no paintings of traditional peasant life, la vie rustique, at Auvers of the sort he had formerly made in Nuenen. His sketchbooks contain perhaps just half a dozen or so quick studies of peasant scenes, such as F1615v Landscape with Peasant Women Harvesting (right), as well as a rather larger number of studies of farm animals such as chickens and ponies. His subjects were landscapes, townscapes, portraiture, and still lifes. His paintings at Auvers imply a range of social domains. Thus, his paintings of dwellings range from thatched cottages through to middle-class villas and finally aristocratic châteaus, and these are set within the social spaces of gardens, streets, and the vestiges of feudal domain respectively. [15]
During the months of May, June and July 1890, van Gogh was extremely productive. The letters give accounts of thirty-six paintings that can be dated with certainty to the Auvers period. The 1970 catalogue raisonné lists another fifty or so, of which some may date before Auvers and others may be inauthentic. Even certain paintings imply a painting executed every other day over the two-month period. [16]
The village captivated him. On his arrival on 20 May 1890, he wrote to his brother Theo and wife Jo Bonger that "Auvers is really beautiful – among other things many old thatched roofs, which are becoming rare." [L 6] In his letter the following day he adds, "But I find the modern villas and the middle-class country houses almost as pretty as the old thatched cottages that are falling into ruin." [17] [L 7]
Van Gogh lodged at the Auberge Ravoux, where he remained until his death in the early hours of the morning of 29 July 1890 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the stomach. [18]
The central house was a townhouse in the hamlet of Chaponval, about a mile west of the Auberge Ravoux. It was situated at 5 Rue de Gré ( 49°4′16.02″N2°8′48.94″E / 49.0711167°N 2.1469278°E ) and still exists, although renovated. It belonged to a mason named August Lecroix and was the subject of an earlier 1873 painting by Paul Cézanne titled La maison du Père Lacroix. [19] Hulsker thought Houses at Auvers was painted shortly after van Gogh arrived. [20] De La Faille thought it painted a little later at the beginning of June, citing a letter of 10 June 1890. [L 8]
The two thatched cottages at the left are set at right angles. They reappear in F780 Thatched cottages in Auvers (see below). [21]
Van Gogh was generally meticulous in his depiction of street scenes, a fact that allowed the precise location of the F766 White House at Night to be ascertained, an Auvers painting that was once thought lost but re-emerged in 1995 in the collection of the Hermitage Museum. [22]
Toledo Museum of Art, the holding museum, points to the structural juxtaposition of the blue-tiled roof and the adjacent thatched roof of the house. Vigorous brush strokes, varying in direction, are used to highlight the contrast and textures. By contrast, the trees and garden are represented in the characteristic swirling manner van Gogh developed at Saint-Rémy. [23] Pickvance notes the colour scheme is restrained in accordance with van Gogh's return to the North, but also in response to the weather conditions: the sky is laden with clouds and a poplar tree bends to the force of the wind. The paint is applied remarkably thinly in places, and there are bare patches of canvas. [21] Van Der Veen & Knapp remark that at the time of writing (2010), the shutters still retained their original green colour. [24]
The picturesque thatched cottages of Auvers appear of necessity in many of van Gogh's views of the town. Only in four paintings are thatched cottages the dominant theme: F758, F780, F792, and F806. [25] In drawings such as F1640r (right), the exaggerated rounded roof lines are not to be found in either French or Dutch cottages. They are part of van Gogh's return to the North he describes in a letter to Theo dated 29 April 1890. The drawing is a study for F750 (below). Close examination shows that there are nevertheless significant differences between the two works; for example, the hills in the painting are trees in the drawing. Van Der Veen & Knapp comment that these liberties van Gogh took with his subject matter demonstrate that his paintings and drawings are not literal depictions of nature but rather interpretations of it. [26] [L 2] [27] [28]
Other paintings from this period are: F750 Thatched Cottages and Houses (for which F1640r above right is a study), F789 The Church at Auvers (another example of his return to the North), [40] the size 30 canvases, and the double-square paintings. F793 Farms near Auvers is an example of a double-square canvas. [41] [42] [43]
The Toledo Museum of Art purchased Houses at Auvers in 1935 with funds from the Libbey Endowment, the gift of Edward Libbey. [60] The work had previously been owned by André Bonger of Amsterdam. [60]
The painting was first shown at the 1905 Amsterdam exhibition and has been since exhibited all over the world, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [61] [62]
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. Not commercially successful, he struggled with severe depression and poverty, eventually leading to his suicide at age thirty-seven.
The Starry Night is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an imaginary village. It has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City since 1941, acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest. Widely regarded as Van Gogh's magnum opus, The Starry Night is one of the most recognizable paintings in Western art.
The Church at Auvers is an oil painting created by Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh in June 1890 which now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France.
Farms near Auvers or Thatched Cottages by a Hill is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in July 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. The painting is an example of the double-square canvases that he employed in his last landscapes.
This is a chronology of the artist Vincent van Gogh. It is based as far as possible on Van Gogh's correspondence. However, it has only been possible to construct the chronology by drawing on additional sources. Most of his letters are not dated and it was only in 1973 that a sufficient dating was established by Jan Hulsker, subsequently revised by Ronald Pickvance and marginally corrected by others. Many other relevant dates in the chronology derive from the biographies of his brother Theo, his uncle and godfather Cent, his friends Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, and others.
Sorrowing Old Man is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he made in 1890 in Saint-Rémy de Provence based on an early lithograph. The painting was completed in early May at a time when he was convalescing from a severe relapse in his health some two months before his death, which is generally accepted as a suicide.
Daubigny's Garden, painted three times by Vincent van Gogh, depicts the enclosed garden of Charles-François Daubigny, a painter whom Van Gogh admired throughout his life.
Cottages is a subject of paintings created by Vincent van Gogh from 1883 and 1885. This is related to the Peasant Character Studies that Van Gogh worked on during the same time period.
The Auberge Ravoux is a French historic landmark located in the heart of the village of Auvers-sur-Oise. It is known as the House of Van Gogh because the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh spent the last 70 days of his life as a lodger at the auberge. During his stay at Auvers, Van Gogh created more than 80 paintings and 64 sketches before shooting himself in the chest on 27 July 1890 and dying two days later on 29 July 1890. The auberge (inn) has been restored as a museum and tourist attraction. The room where Van Gogh lived and died has been restored and can be viewed by the public.
Van Gogh's family in his art refers to works that Vincent van Gogh made for or about Van Gogh family members. In 1881, Vincent drew a portrait of his grandfather, also named Vincent van Gogh, and his sister Wil. While living in Nuenen, Vincent memorialized his father in Still Life with Bible following his death in 1885. There he also made many paintings and drawings in 1884 and 1885 of his parents' vicarage, its garden and the church. At the height of his career in Arles he made Portrait of the Artist's Mother, Memory of the Garden at Etten of his mother and sister and Novel Reader, which is thought to be of his sister, Wil.
The death of Vincent van Gogh, the Dutch post-Impressionist painter, occurred in the early morning of 29 July 1890, in his room at the Auberge Ravoux in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise in northern France. Two days earlier, Van Gogh shot himself or was intentionally or accidentally shot by someone else. While his death certificate states that he died as a result of suicide, at least two biographers have challenged that, saying he may have been intentionally or accidentally shot by someone else.
The Letters of Vincent van Gogh refers to a collection of 903 surviving letters written (820) or received (83) by Vincent van Gogh. More than 650 of these were from Vincent to his brother Theo. The collection also includes letters van Gogh wrote to his sister Wil and other relatives, as well as between artists such as Paul Gauguin, Anthon van Rappard, and Émile Bernard.
Thatched Cottages and Houses is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in May 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.
Old Vineyard with Peasant Woman is a watercolour painting by Vincent van Gogh that he made in May 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.
Tree Roots is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in July 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. The painting is an example of the double-square canvases that he employed in his last landscapes.
Landscape with a Carriage and a Train is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in June 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.
View of the Asylum and Chapel of Saint-Rémy is an oil on canvas painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in autumn 1889 at Saint-Rémy, France, where he had voluntarily incarcerated himself in a lunatic asylum.
Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh painted a self-portrait in oil on canvas in September 1889. The work, which may have been Van Gogh's last self-portrait, was painted shortly before he left Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in southern France. The painting is now at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Rain is an oil-on-canvas painting by Vincent van Gogh, created in 1889, while he was a voluntary patient at an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. He repeatedly painted the view through the window of his room, depicting the colours and shades of the fields and hills around Saint-Rémy as they appeared at various times of day and in varying weather conditions. Rain measures 73.3 cm × 92.4 cm and is held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the United States.
Monastery of Saint-Paul de Mausole is a former monastery in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, France. Several rooms of the building have been converted into a museum to Vincent van Gogh, who stayed there in 1889–1890 at a time when the monastery had been converted to an asylum.
I’m picking up this letter again to try and write, it will come little by little, it’s just that my mind has been so affected – without pain, it’s true – but totally stupefied.
While I was ill I nevertheless still did a few small canvases from memory which you’ll see later, reminiscences of the North ...
And while my illness was at its worst, I still painted, among other things a reminiscence of Brabant, cottages with mossy roofs and beech hedges on an autumn evening with a stormy sky, the sun setting red in reddish clouds.
I’m almost sure that I’ll soon get better in the north, at least for quite a long time, while still apprehensive of a relapse in a few years’ time – but not immediately.
Here we’re far enough from Paris for it to be the real countryside, but nevertheless, how changed since Daubigny. But not changed in an unpleasant way, there are many villas and various modern and middle-class dwellings, very jolly, sunny and covered with flowers. That is the almost lush countryside, just at this moment of the development of a new society in the old one, has nothing disagreeable about it; there’s a lot of well-being in the air. I see or think I see a calm there à la Puvis de Chavannes, no factories, but beautiful greenery in abundance and in good order.
Auvers is really beautiful – among other things many old thatched roofs, which are becoming rare.
But I find the modern villas and the middle-class country houses almost as pretty as the old thatched cottages that are falling into ruin.
Since Sunday I’ve done two studies of houses in the greenery
... I’m adding a croquis of old thatched roofs.
Finally a night effect – two completely dark pear trees against yellowing sky with wheatfields, and in the violet background the castle encased in the dark greenery.
I have a larger painting of the village church – an effect in which the building appears purplish against a sky of a deep and simple blue of pure cobalt, the stained-glass windows look like ultramarine blue patches, the roof is violet and in part orange. In the foreground a little flowery greenery and some sunny pink sand. It’s again almost the same thing as the studies I did in Nuenen of the old tower and the cemetery. Only now the colour is probably more expressive, more sumptuous.