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A ceremony was held in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, to commemorate the location where Vincent van Gogh created his final painting, Tree Roots. The spot is significant because the Dutch painter worked on Tree Roots before killing himself, and Van Gogh aficionados have analyzed the connection between the location and the painter's last days.
In attendance at Tuesday's ceremony were Emilie Gordenker, general director of Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum, and Willem van Gogh, great-grandson of Vincent's brother Theo. The Institut Van Gogh in Auvers teamed up with French authorities to install a wooden structure to protect the location, which was discovered by a researcher at the institute.
In a statement, Teio Meedendorp, senior researcher at the Van Gogh Museum, said, "This area had already been documented by Van Gogh in other paintings. He must often have passed by the location when going to the fields, stretching out behind the castle of Auvers, where he painted several times during the last week of his life and where he would take his own life.'"
On July 29, 1890, Van Gogh died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Two days before, he had been out in a field near Auvers. Van Gogh died at the Auberge Ravoux inn, which is about 150 meters away from the painting's location.
Though the painter's last day was tragic, Wouter Van der Veen, the scientific director at the Institut Van Gogh, believes Tree Roots holds a different message, with its theme of death and regeneration. He told Reuters, "When you chop firewood from a trunk, new growth sprouts. His message was that his work was done. Later that day, in cornfields nearby, he shot himself in the chest."
During France's coronavirus lockdown, Van der Veen discovered the site while digitizing rare postcards of the French village. One of the postcards, which had been dated from 1900 to 1910, featured roots and tree trunks along the Auvers road that were similar to those in the famous painting.
Van der Veen visited the area once the lockdown was lifted in May. The biggest tree trunk seen in the painting is still present.
"The site is also consistent with Van Gogh's habit of painting motifs from his immediate surroundings," he said, according to Hyperallergic.com. "The sunlight painted by Van Gogh indicates that the last brushstrokes were painted towards the end of the afternoon," which provides more information about the course of the day that ended in his death.
