After Vincent van Gogh died, his work got a new lease on life. During his lifetime, Vincent had sent paintings and drawings to his brother Theo in the hope that Theo would be able to sell them. The works would then serve to pay Theo back for all the help he had given Vincent in providing him with a monthly …
On 25 July 1875, Vincent visited the village of Ville d’Avray, southwest of Paris, with fellow painter Frans Soek (?–1879) and Soek’s family. In 1855–56, Camille Corot (1796–1875) had painted four frescoes in the transept of the village church: Adam and Eve Chased from Paradise, Baptism of Christ by St John, Christ in the Garden of Olives and Magdalen at …
In 1875, Vincent attended the Temple de L’Etoile on Avenue de la Grande Armée, near the Arc de Triomphe. Eugène Bersier (1831–1889) was the church’s pastor, and his sermons left an impression on Vincent, who mentioned them in two letters in 1876. Bersier must have been well-known, as Vincent’s mother advised Theo to attend one of his services in 1878.
On 30 May 1875, soon after the death of the painter Camille Corot (1796–1875), Vincent visited the École Nationale des Beaux Arts to see a retrospective exhibition of Corot’s art. The show featured 226 works; Vincent singled out the painting Christ on the mount of Olives, writing that he was grateful that Corot had created the work. Years later, in …
The framer Jean-Marie Boyer (1850–after 1906) ran a shop on Rue Fontaine in Paris. On 3 April 1888, Vincent informed his brother Theo in a letter from Arles that Boyer still had one of his lithographs; he was referring to At Eternity’s Gate. When he lived in Paris, Vincent may have gone to Boyer to have his work framed, or …
After Vincent arrived in Paris in February 1886, he worked mostly in and around his own neighbourhood of Montmartre but this changed in the spring of 1887. From then on, he frequently went to paint and draw in Asnières, a village on the banks of the Seine six kilometres north of Paris that was a popular spot for day trips …
Julien Tanguy’s (1825–1894) little painting supply shop was well known in the Parisian art world of the 1880s. Numerous artists bought their paints and canvases from the popular dealer, whom they called Père Tanguy. The shop was a lively meeting point and it was a place of importance for Vincent. There he bought art supplies and met people including the …
Every time Vincent was in Paris – whether for days or years – he went to the Louvre to view its masterpieces. In 1875–76, living in the city and working for the art dealers Goupil & Cie, he often went to the Louvre or the Musée du Luxembourg on Sundays with his friend Harry Gladwell. The Louvre’s importance to Vincent …
The Musée du Luxembourg was the foremost museum for contemporary art in Paris. On his first visit to the city in May 1873, Vincent went there immediately, and he was impressed by the range of great artworks on show. After moving to Paris in 1875, he visited the Musée du Luxembourg every week, sometimes with his housemate and friend Harry …
Vincent often frequented the Hôtel Drouot auction house on viewing days to look at the art. Some of the works he saw so impressed him that he mentioned them in his letters. On 11 or 12 June 1875, for instance, he viewed a sales exhibition of 95 pastels and drawings by the French artist Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) from the collection …
Seated on the terrace outside of Auberge Ravoux on 14 July 1890, Vincent painted a view of the town hall of Auvers-sur-Oise. In this painting the building and its garden were adorned by decorations of flags and banners for the occasion of Bastille Day or Quatorze Juillet, the national day of France. Vincent gave the work as a gift to …
In early June 1890, Vincent painted the medieval church in Auvers-sur-Oise. He described the painting in a letter to his sister Willemien: “With that 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 …
Cemetery Auvers-sur-Oise, France 7 Jun 1892 – 8 Apr 1914 Download walk On 29 July 1890, Vincent died of injuries from a self-inflicted gunshot wound incurred two days before in a field outside Auvers-sur-Oise. He was buried in the village cemetery on 30 July. The funeral was attended by his brother Theo, Dr Gachet, the Ravouxs, neighbours from the village …
Vincent made two paintings and a sketch of the garden at the former home of the artist Charles-Francois Daubigny (1817–1878). Daubigny, whose work Vincent greatly admired, had built the country retreat in 1861 and lived between Paris and Auvers. By the time Vincent visited, Daubigny had been dead for more than a decade, but his widow Marie-Sophie, still lived there. …
Upon arrival in Auvers-sur-Oise on 20 May 1890, Vincent rented a room on the second floor of Auberge Ravoux in Place de la Mairie. Dr Gachet had advised him to use the village’s other inn, Saint-Aubin in Rue de Pontoise, but Vincent found it too expensive at six francs per night. Arthur Gustave Ravoux and his wife, Adeline Louise Touillet, …
Upon arrival in Auvers on 20 May 1890, Vincent immediately went to see Dr Paul-Ferdinand Gachet (1828–1909) on the advice of his brother Theo. Gachet acted as Vincent’s medical doctor and confidant. It was vital that he have supervision, as there was a chance he would suffer further psychotic attacks, as he had experienced in Arles and Saint-Rémy: “The main …
Olive trees, along with mountain landscapes and cypresses, usually served as subject matter for Vincent once he was able to paint outside the grounds of the asylum in early June 1889. He had been drawn to olive trees since Arles but had not yet ventured out to paint them: “…that’s to say the murmur of an olive grove has something …
During his first month in the asylum, Vincent was not permitted to work outdoors. When he finally did go outside in June, he decided to paint characteristic Provençal subjects, such as the Alpilles, the olive trees and the omnipresent cypress trees. In late June 1889, he wrote to his brother Theo that he was busy painting cypresses. He explained why …
Vincent’s bedroom in Saint-Paul de Mausole looked out over an enclosed wheat field with the Alpilles mountains beyond. In one of his first letters to his brother Theo from Saint-Rémy, he wrote: “Through the iron-barred window I can make out a square of wheat in an enclosure, a perspective in the manner of Van Goyen, above which in the morning …
Vincent painted Saint-Rémy’s main street twice. The Cours Est was renamed Boulevard Mirabeau in 1891. His compositions were a departure from the others he made in Saint-Rémy; he generally preferred to stay within the asylum’s walls or escape into the stillness of the breath-taking countryside. On his first trip to the village, in early June 1889, Vincent suddenly became unwell. …
Vincent came to Saint-Remy de Provence on 8 May 1889 to be voluntarily committed to the Saint-Paul de Mausole psychiatric institution, which was housed in a former monastery. He had suffered a series of severe breakdowns since December 1888 and believed he should be institutionalised for his own sake and that of others. He received treatment from his doctor, Théophile …
Vincent made countless trips to Montmajour, a hill topped by an abbey a few kilometres northeast of the city centre of Arles. He discovered it two weeks after his arrival in Arles while exploring the surrounding countryside and he expressed the desire to go there to paint. Vincent considered the hill beautiful, with its abbey and its view over the …
Vincent admired the entrance of the St-Trophime church on Place de la République. He wrote to his brother Theo in March 1888: “There’s a Gothic porch here that I’m beginning to think is admirable, the porch of St Trophime, but it’s so cruel, so monstrous, like a Chinese nightmare, that even this beautiful monument in so grand a style seems …
In September 1888, Vincent painted the world-famous Café Terrace at Night. He made the work on location outside the Café du Forum on Place du Forum: “In the past they used to draw, and paint the picture from the drawing in the daytime. But I find that it suits me to paint the thing straightaway. It’s quite true that I …