A rite held in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, to commemorate the position in which Vincent van Gogh created his last painting, Tree Roots. The position is significant because the Dutch painter worked at Tree Roots before committing suicide, and Van Gogh’s fans analyzed the link between the post and the painter’s last days.
In Tuesday’s rite were Emilie Gordenker, executive director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and Willem van Gogh, great-grandson of Vincent Theo’s brother. The Van Gogh Institute in Auvers partnered with the French government to install a wood design on the site, as discovered by a researcher at the institute.
In a statement, Teio Meedendorp, principal investigator at the Van Gogh Museum, said: “This domain had already been documented through Van Gogh in other paintings. He had to pass through it on his way to the fields, which stretches behind the castle. Auvers, where he painted several times during the last week of his life and where he would commit suicide.
On 29 July 1890, Van Gogh died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Two days earlier, he had visited a box near Auvers. Van Gogh died at the Ravoux Inn inn, which is about 150 metres from the painting’s location.
If the painter’s last day is tragic, Wouter Van der Veen, clinical director of the Van Gogh Institute, believes Tree Roots carries a different message, with its theme of death and regeneration. He told Reuters: “When you cut firewood on a log, new shoots grow. His message that his paintings are over. Later that day, in the vicinity of the cornfields, he shot himself in the chest.”
During the blockade of the coronavirus in France, Van der Veen discovered the site by scanning rare postcards from the French village. One of the postcards, dated 1900 to 1910, showed roots and tree trunks along the Way to Auvers that resembled those of the famous painting.
Van der Veen visited the domain after the blockade was lifted in May. The largest tree trunk seen in the portrait is still present.
“It’s also consistent with Van Gogh’s habit of portraying patterns from his immediate surroundings,” he said, according to Hyperallergic.com. ‘Sunlight painted through Van Gogh indicates that the last brushstrokes were painted towards the end of the afternoon,’ providing more information about the course of the day that ended with his death.
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