Vincent van Gogh’s artwork has left us with numberless questions when dying in 1890. He is often referred to as the ‘painter of the sunflowers’ – or otherwise as to the ‘mad artist’. Today van Gogh is today regarded as one of the most admired Post-Impressionist painters. Although he only sold one of his works during his lifetime, his work has been sold after his death for record numbers. The most expensive of van Gogh’s paintings was the portrait of doctor Paul Gachet, who took care of the artist in the final months of his life in the commune displayed in this picture of “Plain near Auvers”. Exploring his late landscape paintings, his expressive and emotive use of vivid colour and brisk application of impastoed paint, can give us some insight about van Gogh’s innermost thoughts.
Where is the picture “Plain near Auvers” today?
Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Plain near Auvers” is on permanent display at the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, Germany.
What’s in it?
Van Gogh’s landscape painting shows an immense plain near Auvers-Sur-Oise, fields with wheat stacks, framed by lush trees, reaching up to a hill, the scenery vibrating under the strong Provençal sunlight in delicate tones of yellow. The artist emphasizes the high rising blade of grass and little red poppies in the foreground, resonating with the seemingly fast-moving clouds in a sky with different tones of azure-blue, creamy white, pink, and violet. As typical for his late style, colours are applied in fiery brushstrokes with ridges of thick impasto, making the motives appear almost haptic tangible.
What’s the context?
Van Gogh Facts:
- “Plain near Auvers” is one of more than 30 pictures that van Gogh frantically created in the months before his death in the Summer of 1890.
- He had just left an asylum In Saint-Rémy, where he had been treated for mental health problems and had travelled to the commune Auvers-Sur-Oise located northwest of Paris.
- In Auvers, he sought the supervisory care and companionship by physician Paul Gachet, whom he painted a world-renowned portrait of.
- Many artists before van Gogh had worked in Auvers for inspiration by the scenery for their plein air painting, among them Honoré Daumier, Camille Corot, Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Armand Guillaumin, and Charles-François Daubigny.
- As we know from van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo, he adored and had been absorbed by the landscape of Auvers. He wrote: Auvers is very pretty…, there is countryside all around, typical and picturesque.”
- However, he also admitted feeling very depressed despite the idyllic surroundings: “There are vast fields of wheat under troubled skies, and I did not need to go out of my way to express sadness and extreme loneliness.”
Chatter and Prattle
- Most art historians agree that van Gogh most likely committed suicide in the summer of 1890, just a few days after he painted “Plain near Auvers”. A newer but highly controversial theory puts forth, that he might have been shot by a young boy who liked to pester the artist.
- Despite the support of doctor Gachet, van Gogh purportedly must have shot himself in the chest with a Lefaucheux revolver and died from his injuries two days later.
- The landscapes painted in the weeks preceding his death have been widely interpreted as reflecting van Gogh’s inner emotions and thoughts. Apart from art historians, the pictures in combination with the letters he wrote to his brother, his sister, and his mother have further served psychologists as materials for studying mental health issues.
Recommended Readings:
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Ingo F. Walther et al. (2020): Van Gogh. The Complete Paintings
Vincent Van GoghVincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890) is one of the renowned Post-Impressionist artists, best known for his striking use of colour, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms. As a son of a pastor, the Dutch artist war brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere. After working unsuccessfully as a clerk at a bookstore, as a salesman, and as a preacher More (2020): The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh
Martin Gayford (2008): The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence
Steven Naifeh et al. (2012): Van Gogh: The Life (RANDOM HOUSE)
Steven Naifeh (2021): Van Gogh and the Artists He Loved
