Can the wrong roots solve the mystery of Van Gogh’s death?
130 years ago, Vincent Van Gogh woke up in the room of the inn in the small town of Auville-sur-Oise, France, and went out to paint with a canvas as usual. That night, he returned with a fatal gunshot wound. Two days later, he passed away. The life of this great artist was fixed forever on July 29, 1890.
For a long time, scholars have had many speculations about the sequence of events on the day of the shooting. French researcher Walter van der Wien said that he recently discovered the exact location of Van Gogh’s last painting “Roots” during his lifetime. This undoubtedly provides important clues to the mystery of Van Gogh’s death and helps people to learn more. Get a good understanding of how this great artist spent the last time in his life.
Van der Wien is the scientific director of the Van Gogh Institute. This institution was established to preserve Van Gogh’s small room in the Raou Inn in the town of Auvers-sur-Oise. “We now know what he was doing before he was shot.” He said, “He was painting that picture all day.”
Van der Wien found that the location of ” Roots ” was on Dubini Street. It is a main road across the small town of Orville. Today, those intertwined tree roots and stumps can still be seen on a hillside there, and it is only 500 feet away from the Rawu Inn, where the Brahma Heights lived for the last 70 days.
Researchers at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam affirmed this discovery. The museum’s senior researcher Luis Van Tilbo said the discovery was “an interpretation, but it may indeed be true”.
This discovery was very accidental. Van der Wien said that he was looking at a 1905 photo of Auville, a small town borrowed from Jeanne de Meritz. The 94-year-old French lady had collected hundreds of historical postcards. In one of the postcards, a man pushing a bicycle stopped by Dubini Street, and the roots of the trees on the embankment were clearly visible.
Van der Wien said that when he saw this postcard at his home in Strasbourg, France, he was hit by an aura: the picture reminded him of Van Gogh’s “Roots”. So he found the electronic version of this painting and compared it with the postcard. “This postcard is not a secret document.” Van der Wien said, “A lot of people have seen it, and its theme-the root of the tree, is hidden under our noses.”
Because of the epidemic, Van der Wien could not go to view it in person. , So I asked Dominique Jensen, director of the Van Gogh Institute in Orville, to take a look at Via Dubini. “It can be said that 45% to 50% are still there.” Jensens was referring to the entangled tree roots. “Some trees have been cut down and the rest is covered with ivy.”
Van Gogh would follow along. Walking along Dubini Street to the town’s church, he created “Auville Church” in June 1890. He would follow this road to the vast wheat fields outside the town, and in July he created another A famous painting “Crows in the Wheat Field”.
Since Van Gogh didn’t like to mark his paintings with dates, the debate about his last painting has never ceased. Many people think “Crows in the Rye” is his last painting, because in the 1956 biopic “The Biography of Van Gogh” directed by Vincent Minnelli, Kirk Douglas played Van Gogh before committing suicide. In his crazy state, he painted this picture.
Andris Bunge, the brother-in-law of Van Gogh’s younger brother Theo Van Gogh, recorded some events before and after Van Gogh’s death. He wrote in a letter: “The morning before his death, he painted a picture A forest scene full of sunshine and vitality.” In 2012, the Van Gogh Museum published a paper written by Van Thielbo and Bert Metz, and believed that the paintings mentioned in Bungershin belong to the museum’s collection. The unfinished “Roots”. This view has been widely recognized by scholars.
Van der Wien believed that from the light outlined on the tree roots in the painting, Van Gogh should have painted this part around 5 or 6 in the afternoon, that is to say, he was probably painting this painting all day. .
Van der Wein added that this new evidence also challenges the views of Steven Neffi and Gregory Smith in the biography of Van Gogh in 2011. The book believes that Van Gogh did not die by suicide, but probably had an argument with the two young boys after being drunk. Later, two boys missed him and killed him not far from Rawu Inn. Van der Wein said: “Now we know that he is painting all day, and there is no time to fight with people.”
But Neffi responded that it is not advisable to judge the creation time based on the angle of light. “It’s not a photo, but a painting.” He added, “Van Gogh’s paintings are a bit abstract, and he always tries many new painting techniques.” So it’s hard to tell what he saw with his own eyes. , Or he created it himself on the canvas.
Nafie believes that this discovery can even be regarded as the basis for the “Van Gogh homicide” view. “He paints outside all day. It is not an ordinary painting, but a very important work of him. All this shows that he is probably not depressed. For Van Gogh, it should be substantial and ordinary. One day, this contradicted the idea that he might choose to commit suicide.”
Van der Wien agreed with one of them. He said: “This confirms what most witnesses said at the time, that is, the last few days of his life.
Here , the behavior is completely normal, and there is no sign that he has encountered any crisis.” However, Van der Wien still firmly believes that Van Gogh died by suicide, which is also the official position of the Van Gogh Museum.
Van Gogh also painted tree roots when he lived in The Hague in 1882. In a letter to his brother Theo, he once described that work. He wrote that he hoped the tree “shows some kind of life struggle”, thinking it was “so madly and passionately rooted in the earth, yet still torn apart by the storm”.
Van der Wien believes that “Roots” conveys a similar message. He said: “For Van Gogh, it is very meaningful to end his life with this painting. This painting depicts the struggle of life and the struggle with death. This is what he left behind-a picture A farewell letter written in color.”
