If Vincent van Gogh will raise his head he would see how the small town in the He took his sick life slowly.In everyone's mind is the church of Auvers-sur-Oise -30km from Paris-that the great painter immortalized in 1890 shortly before dying in a fever creative that led him to make 60 canvases in 70 days.Auvers-sur-Oise is located in the heart of the peaceful and picturesque Oise Valley.Many artists such as Van Gogh, Cezanne, Corot and Daubigny, found their inspiration here.
The town suffered last fall from the weather destroying part of the roof of the church and moving a pillar.
The mayor of the municipality, with 6,800 inhabitants, I can now help to cope with the 600,000 euros that would cost the repair of the temple built between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.laquo; We have an excessive financial responsibility.That is why we are addressing the entire world» I explain.
The The church is not the only corner that needs help.The road to the cemetery as well as the churchyard itself, where the remains of Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo rest, suffer leaks and lack any security.help has not yet arrived and time is pressing while this jewel deteriorates into oblivion.
Related: Journey to Auvers-sur-Oise
Life ran like a bullet in those trains that snorted in the Gare St.Lazare.In the vertigo of the era of inventions, a group of painters wanted to catch the world that slipped through their fingers with pure colors and loose strokes.reality that they traveled in a sigh from the Latin Quarter or from any alley in a small town to the canvas. The Impressionists may not know that this They created one of the most popular movements in history.Some had enough to survive.For years, they succeeded in the newly discovered refuge of the campina, two steps (about thirty kilometers) from Paris.
The world is spinning even faster today.But in Auvers , as then, you take a breath.This town embraced by the water of the Oise is a haven of peace, almost a photocopy of what I find Daubigny , forerunner of the Impressionists, when I install his« atelier» in 1860 (today museum, open to the public in, of course, the« rue» which bears his name).From the door of that house we see with his eyes, or with those of Cezanne, or with those of Van Gogh : single-family homes with two or three floors, the forest on the horizon, the quiet streets, the clinking of coffee cups, the green field envy.
The castle from Auvers-sur-Oise , where an impressionism interpretation center has been built, is a good door to enter the valley.For almost two hours that time is presented to us with a shower of models, audiovisuals, photographs and reconstruction of scenarios, for example the train that arrived from the then distant center of the capital, or a cafe in which the cannibal of the cancan sounds.
In Auvers the day goes by brushstrokes, between the castle , Dr.Gachet's house , and the« atelier» and the Daubigny museum.In the streets they have also had the good idea of installing panels with known paintings next to the original landscape, which helps visitors to travel a century ago, to stand behind the easel, to walk among the Silent streets in search of another corner that they will surely have seen sometime in a museum or in a catalog.And so, until they return to the center, to the Place de la Mairie, in search of the archifamous house in which Van Gogh spent his last days.
At our back is the Town Hall, a historic facade behind« posar» for the misunderstood genius, and in front, the Auberge Ravoux , with its little coffee on the ground floor and, upstairs, the« mirocuarto» most famous in the world, divided into two zones.In the first, the loneliness of a chair becomes a metaphor for the man who could not sell a painting, who shot himself; in the second, there is hardly a single bed, located under the stream of attic roof.Here he slept seventy days, before he died, an era of creative frenzy in which he painted seventy paintings, thirty drawings and an engraving.
The towns closest to the Seine and those of the Oise Valley almost touch each other. Pontoise , where Pisarro lived, is three kilometers from Auvers, for example.This proximity explains the relationship between the Impressionists.« Cezanne has influenced me in Pontoise, and I wrote to him- Pisarro wrote in 1895.-They talk about how curious the relationship between some landscapes created by both is.Of course, we were always together, but we were always together.It is true that each one retained the only thing that counts, his feeling, that would be easy to prove».When traveling, the best thing is a car, to approach the house-museum of Monet , in Argenteuil, or the museum of the Maison Fournaise, in Chatou, immortalized by R Anger at« The boatmen's lunch» ;, or maybe Croissy-sur-Seine , looking for the paintings that remind of the Grenouillere's cafe-dance.Whoever prefers it, that yes, can settle for Auvers, the operations center of Impressionism.
The Oise Valley: the villages
Many of the landscapers of the late nineteenth century lived in these villages.In 1866 Monet moved to Sevres.In 1869 he moved to Saint-Michel, near Bougival, and paints with Renoir, who lives in his parents' house, in Ville-d' Avray, Croissy Island.Pisarro is established in Louveciennes before 1870.Sisley lives in Bougival from 1870 to 1875, and from from that date, in Marly-le-Roi.Daubigny is the fashion pioneer of Auvers-sur-Oise, where he opens a house in 1860.Pisarro discovers Pontoise from 1866 to 1869.Then, after 1872, he will paint here ot For ten years, in 1878, Caillebote acquires a house in Petite-Gennevilliers.Cezanne arrives in Auvers attracted by Dr.Gachet, patron of many of these creators.In 1890, Van Gogh spends his last weeks also in this town.Mont chooses Argenteuil in 1872, and his friends Renoir, Sisley and Manet would pass by.
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