Old Church Tower at Nuenen

Last updated
Old Church Tower at Nuenen
Van Gogh - Der alte Friedhofsturm in Nuenen.jpeg
Old Church Tower at Nuenen, 1884, (F88)
Artist Vincent van Gogh
Year1884-1885
Location Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection, Zürich

Old Church Tower at Nuenen (or The Peasants' Churchyard) are names given to several oil paintings and drawings created in 1884 and 1885 by Vincent van Gogh. Most reflect the way the 12th-century church looked in its better days when its spire was intact and its foundation formidable. The spire was demolished in 1792 and the church tower was in the process of being torn down and sold for scrap as Van Gogh made the paintings.

Contents

Background

In 1882, Van Gogh's father became pastor in Nuenen and the family lived at the vicarage at Nuenen, a small village in the North Brabant district of the Netherlands. After a stay in Drenthe for several months, Van Gogh moved to live with his parents in December 1883 and stayed there until May 1885. [1] While in Nuenen Van Gogh worked on character studies of the local peasants. It was winter and there was little to be done in the fields, so Van Gogh was able to make connections to people through his father, a town minister. [2] Van Gogh's character studies culminated in his best known painting The Potato Eaters . Potatoes were a staple of the poor peasant’s diet, who could barely afford bread and meat was a luxury. Potato was a food not fit for those who could afford better in the 19th century. Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish philosopher, deemed the poor "root-eaters". [3]

While in Nuenen, Van Gogh made a number of paintings of The Old Church Tower at Nuenen, born of his enjoyment of visiting churches and cemeteries. Vincent was the second child to his parents, born exactly one year after their first baby, still born, also named Vincent. Like other "substitute" children, he regularly visited the site of his sibling's grave. [4] Vincent's brother was buried in Zundert Groot, [5] but his death may have been an influencing factor in his interest in churches and graveyards.

He also may have been inspired by Jean-François Millet's The Church at Greville. [6]

History

The Old Church Tower is the final remains of a 12th-century Romanesque church built during Christianity's spread across the countryside. It is surrounded by an old burial ground whose graves were marked with simple wooden crosses. The spire was demolished before Van Gogh's early watercolors of the tower could be developed into oil paintings. At the time, the building itself was crumbling. The final version of the oil paintings were finished just before the building was demolished and the remains sold for scrap. [6]

The paintings

Van Gogh made eleven drawings and paintings of the Church tower; one of the drawings is of a funeral. [7]

Old Church Tower at Nuenen, ('The Peasants' Churchyard') (F84) was made as a tribute to the simple, humble lives of the peasants who "for centuries... have been laid to rest, among the fields in which they rooted when alive." The ruined tower he saw a symbol of the declining role of Christianity in people's lives. The tower was demolished shortly after Van Gogh concluded this painting. [8]

Van Gogh wrote of this painting:

"I wanted to express how perfectly simple death & burial is, as simple as the falling of autumn leaves -- just some earth dug up -- a little wooden cross. The fields around -- they make a final line against the horizon, where the grass of the churchyard ends -- like a horizon of sea. An now this ruin tells me how a creed and religion have moldered away, even though they were so well established -- how, nevertheless, the life & death of the peasants is and remains the same: always sprouting and withering like the grass and the flowers that are growing in this graveyard." [6]

Other paintings of churches

See also

Related Research Articles

Vincent van Gogh Dutch painter (1853–1890)

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. He was not commercially successful and, struggling with severe depression and poverty, committed suicide at the age of 37.

Van Gogh Museum National art museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Van Gogh Museum is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened on 2 June 1973, and its buildings were designed by Gerrit Rietveld and Kisho Kurokawa.

Nuenen Town in North Brabant, Netherlands

Nuenen is a town in the municipality of Nuenen, Gerwen en Nederwetten in the Netherlands. From 1883 to 1885, Vincent van Gogh lived and worked in Nuenen. In 1944, the town was a battle scene during Operation Market Garden. The local dialect is called Peellands. In 2009, Nuenen had a population of 22,437.

<i>The Potato Eaters</i> Painting by Vincent van Gogh

The Potato Eaters is an oil painting by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh painted in April 1885 in Nuenen, Netherlands. It is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The original oil sketch of the painting is at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, and he also made lithographs of the image, which are held in collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The painting is considered to be one of Van Gogh's masterpieces.

<i>The Church at Auvers</i>

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.

Vincent van Gogh lived during the Impressionist era. With the development of photography, painters and artists turned to conveying the feeling and ideas behind people, places, and things rather than trying to imitate their physical forms. Impressionist artists did this by emphasizing certain hues, using vigorous brushstrokes, and paying attention to highlighting. Vincent van Gogh implemented this ideology to pursue his goal of depicting his own feelings toward and involvement with his subjects. Van Gogh's portraiture focuses on color and brushstrokes to demonstrate their inner qualities and van Gogh's own relationship with them.

<i>Cottages</i> (Van Gogh series) Painting series by Vincent van Gogh

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.

<i>Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen</i> Painting by Vincent van Gogh

Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen is an early painting by Vincent van Gogh, made in early 1884 and modified in late 1885. It is displayed at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

<i>Wheat Fields</i> Series of paintings by Vincent van Gogh

Wheat Fields is a series of dozens of paintings by Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh, borne out of his religious studies and sermons, connection to nature, appreciation of manual laborers and desire to provide a means of offering comfort to others. The wheat field works demonstrate his progression as an artist from the drab Wheat Sheaves made in 1885 in the Netherlands to the colorful and dramatic 1888–1890 paintings from Arles, Saint-Rémy and Auvers-sur-Oise in rural France.

Early works of Vincent van Gogh Painting series by Vincent van Gogh

The early works of Vincent van Gogh comprise a group of paintings and drawings that Vincent van Gogh made when he was 27 and 28, in 1881 and 1882, his first two years of serious artistic exploration. Over the course of the two-year period Van Gogh lived in several places. He left Brussels, where he had studied for about a year in 1881, to return to his parents’ home in Etten, where he made studies of some of the residents of the town. In January 1882 Van Gogh went to The Hague where he studied with his cousin-in-law Anton Mauve and set up a studio, funded by Mauve. During the ten years of Van Gogh's artistic career from 1881 to 1890 Vincent's brother Theo would be a continuing source of inspiration and financial support; his first financial support began in 1880 funding Vincent while he lived in Brussels.

<i>The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen</i> 1884 painting by Vincent van Gogh

The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen, alternatively named The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring or Spring Garden, is an early oil painting by 19th-century Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh, created in May 1884 while he was living with his parents in Nuenen. Van Gogh made several drawings and oil paintings of the surrounding gardens and the garden façade of the parsonage.

<i>Peasant Character Studies</i> (Van Gogh series) Painting series by Vincent van Gogh

Peasant Character Studies is a series of works that Vincent van Gogh made between 1881 and 1885.

Van Goghs family in his art Appearances of Vincent van Goghs family in his art

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.

<i>Sien</i> (Van Gogh series) Dutch tailor and prostitute

Vincent van Gogh drew and painted a series of works of his mistress Sien during their time together in the Netherlands. In particular, his drawing Sorrow is widely acknowledged as a masterwork of draftsmanship, the culmination of a long and sometimes uncertain apprenticeship in learning his craft.

Still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands) Painting series by Vincent van Gogh

Still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands) is the subject of many drawings, sketches and paintings made during Vincent van Gogh's early artistic career. Most still lifes made in the Netherlands are dated from 1884 to 1885, when he lived in Nuenen. His works were often in somber colors. Van Gogh experimented with the use of light falling across objects.

<i>Old Vineyard with Peasant Woman</i>

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.

<i>Meadows near Rijswijk and the Schenkweg</i>

Meadows near Rijswijk and the Schenkweg is a watercolor by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh that he made in January 1882, shortly after taking up residence in The Hague.

<i>Houses at Auvers</i> Painting by Vincent van Gogh

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.

<i>Peasant Woman Digging Up Potatoes</i> Painting by Vincent van Gogh

Peasant Woman Digging Up Potatoes is a painting by Vincent van Gogh, probably painted in 1885. It is now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. It is oil on canvas mounted on panel.

References

  1. ↑ "The Vicarage at Nuenen, 1885". Permanent Collection. Van Gogh Museum. 2005–2011. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
  2. ↑ "Head of a Man, 1885". Permanent Collection. Van Gogh Museum. 2005–2011. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
  3. ↑ Hansen; Nichols; Sund; Knudsen; Bremen (2003). Van Gogh: Fields. Hatje Cantz Publishers for Toledo Museum of Art Exhibition. p. 46. ISBN   3-7757-1131-7.
  4. ↑ Lamothe, E; Sauvage, J, eds. (2008). Of Mothers and Death: from Procreation to Creation. Pessac: Presses Universitairies de Bordeaux. p. 151. ISBN   978-2-86781-493-8.
  5. ↑ Johanna Gesina van Gogh - Bonger, Vincent's sister in law (2011). "Memoir of Vincent van Gogh, page 2". Van Gogh Paintings. Van Gogh Gallery. Retrieved 2011-05-17.
  6. 1 2 3 Hempton, D (2008). Evangelical Disenchantment: Nine Portraits of Faith and Doubt. Grand Rapids: With the assistance of the Louis Stern Memorial Fund. pp. 132–133. ISBN   978-0-300-14067-5.
  7. ↑ Lubin, A (1996) [1972]. Stranger on the Earth: A Psychological Biography of Vincent van Gogh. New York: Da Capo Press. p. 91. ISBN   0-306-80726-2.
  8. ↑ "The Old Church Tower at Nuenen ('The Peasants' Churchyard'), 1885". Permanent Collection. Van Gogh Museum. 2005–2011. Retrieved 2011-05-17.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.