Retracing van Gogh's Final Footsteps

The Auberge Ravoux is a must see. This is where Vincent van Gogh lived and took his meals back in 1890. Upstairs is the House of van Gogh, a museum where you can see his room. Downstairs at street level, there's terrific food at the Commerce de Vins Restaurant. This is a wonderful restaurant with incredible entrees, desserts and French country ambiance.

Notre Dame d'Auvers, the church that van Gogh made famous in his painting The Church at Auvers, is a huge, beautiful structure dating back to the 12th century that appears much the same as it probably did when he painted it in 1890.

Another highlight is following Rue Emile Bernard out into the fields and finding the final resting place of Vincent and his brother Theo in Le Cimetière d'Auvers.

Amid all the highlights, there are one or two mild disappointments. The site where van Gogh painted Daubigny's Garden, for example, is overgrown with weeds and bears little if any resemblance to Vincent's painting.

As we were walking back to the train station in late afternoon, vendors were setting up in the parking lot at the Auvers Town Hall that Vincent had painted back in 1890. We bought a big bottle of apple cider from one of the vendors that we shared on the train back to Paris, the perfect way to cap off the wonderful day we'd spent here.

Quick Tips:

When you arrive in Auvers-sur-Oise, you'll quickly notice that the church tower dominates the sky. It is easy to find and just a short walk from the train station, so this is a good place to begin your journey.

Don't fret if you don't have a detailed map of Auvers. Many of the street signs have additional signage directing you to various locations throughout the town such as the church, the cemetery, and Dr. Gachet's house. The "passport" and admission ticket you'll receive at the House of van Gogh museum has a pretty good walking map of Auvers. There are also several placards located throughout the town wherever it's surmised that Vincent set up his easel to paint various subjects such as Daubigny's Garden, Wheat Field with Crows, and Auvers Town Hall on 14 July 1890.

Including travel time from Paris, plan on spending the better part of a day in Auvers-sur-Oise. This is a place where your visit is not to be rushed. We arrived around 10am and stayed until a little after 3pm, arriving back at the Gare du Nord in Paris around 4:30pm.

Best Way To Get Around:

Auvers-sur-Oise is a small rural community. Once you arrive, you can get to all of the sights by foot. Even if you have a car, you'll see more and have a richer experience if you walk. If you get disoriented while you're walking, simply look up and locate the church (it'll be there) to regain your bearings.

One final note on this journal: I have included some links to images of a few of Vincent's paintings at vangoghgallery.com. I have no connection, loyalties, or ulterior motives with regards to this site; it just happens to be the most thorough reference on the web dedicated to van Gogh, and has an image of every one of van Gogh's works. The intent was to allow the reader to see an image of the painting I'm writing about.

The Commerce de Vins Restaurant is located in the original inn where Vincent van Gogh stayed during the final seventy or so days of his life. He paid 3.5 francs a day for his room and his meals at the Auberge Ravoux. We took a midday break from our exploration of Auvers and enjoyed an outstanding meal here.

On the train back to Paris we met a man from the nearby town of Pontoise who told us that this place had been a bar for a long time. Today, however, it's a fine restaurant that offers terrific regional cuisine and wine in a historic setting: you're dining in the same room that Vincent did. The dining room has a cozy, French country charm and gives you the impression that it looks much as it did more than 110 years ago when Vincent lived here.

They offer an appetizer, entree and dessert for 195Fr (about $27), or an entree and your choice of appetizer or dessert for 155Fr (about $21). I ordered the salmon with honey sauce and grilled onions, and the tarte tatin for dessert. Both of my traveling companions ordered the lamb stew, which is cooked for 7 hours! The chef, who speaks good English, told us that this is the specialty of the house. Everything was outstanding (as good as the salmon was, I wished I'd ordered the lamb stew; it was fabulous). The service was good and the staff was very friendly. Our server didn't speak any English, which only added to the charm of the place. The chef allowed me to take photos of the interior and the dessert table, which is located in front of the bar. As we were eating, it seemed that every few minutes someone would emerge from the kitchen and place another newly baked creation on the table (as if we needed any persuading).

The hours are:

Lunch: Daily from 12pm-3pm Dinner: Spring and summer, 7:30pm-11pm; autumn and winter by reservation.

My 1-10 ratings:
Food - 10; Service - 8; Atmosphere - 10

Vincent and Theo: The Ties That Bind

Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo are both buried in the cemetery at Auvers-sur-Oise. Following in the footsteps of his uncles, Theo was an art dealer who supported Vincent financially with a monthly stipend throughout Vincent's career as an artist. Eventually it was agreed that in exchange for the money he received, Vincent would turn over his production to Theo to help build an art collection jointly held by the two brothers. Few casual observers realize that none of Vincent's paintings would likely exist had he not had the financial support of his brother.

Vincent was often combative and an incredible burden to Theo while he was alive. When Vincent was living in Theo's Paris flat and hanging out with a group of artists including Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and others who would regularly get together to discuss art and lament their dismal financial prospects, it was agreed at one point that Theo should somehow support them all. But Emile Bernard, an artist friend who attended Vincent's funeral, wrote in detail about it and reported that Theo was overcome with grief. Theo's own health rapidly declined, and he died less than six months after Vincent.

Le Cimetière

The cemetery is located on Rue Emile Bernard about a 1/4 mile outside the village. Follow the road uphill and away from Notre Dame d'Auvers and out into the fields. After you round a corner you'll see the stone wall that surrounds the cemetery in the distance. As you walk down the road, in the field to your left is a placard that commemorates the site where it's surmised Vincent set up his easel to paint Wheat Field with Crows. On the right just before the cemetary is the motif for Landscape at Auvers in the Rain.

The graves are easy to find. As you walk in the front gate, they're about half way down on the left hand side, up against the stone wall. No grand monuments here, just two simple headstones surrounded by ivy, stark in their simplicity. Each headstone simply says, ici repose (here lies), with their names and years of their birth and death.

Due to Vincent's suicide, there was some controversy about his being buried here. The Catholic church of Auvers refused to allow it, but the nearby township of Méry, however, agreed to allow the burial and the funeral was held on July 30, 1890. Theo was originally buried in Utrecht, The Netherlands, but in 1914 his widow Johanna had Theo moved to his brother's side. A thatch of ivy from Dr. Gachet's garden was planted, and a rich thicket now intertwines the two graves, linking the two brothers in death as they were in life. I found this to be a beautiful, peaceful little place.

Notre Dame d'Auvers, which dates back to mainly the 12th and 13th centuries, has a rich history in its own right, but was made famous by Vincent's painting The Church at Auvers.

The church seems huge in comparison to the size of the town. You can see the bell tower immediately as you leave the train station. The church can be traced back as far as 1131, and there were substantial changes in the 17th century. Despite several transformations and periods of upheaval, it still features predominantly Roman Gothic-architecture. It's quite beautiful inside, with impressive stained glass, particularly the design opposite the altar.

As we walked in, we met a man who was working inside and introduced himself as Bernard, whom we presumed to be the parish priest. Since it was a Saturday and he was wearing working clothes of a sweater and slacks, we couldn't tell for certain. He spoke a little English, just enough for us to tell him where we were from and have a nice conversation for a couple of minutes. We finished our tour of the inside and just as we were about to leave, Bernard started playing a Beethoven piece on the piano, which seemed to fit the mood of the day perfectly. We stayed and listed to him play, leaving with huge smiles on our faces after he finished.

The church was classified as a historic monument in 1915. It is open daily from 9am-6pm. Telephone (33) 01.30.36.71.79

As museums go, this is about as small as it gets. But if you're in Auvers-sur-Oise, it's most likely this is what you came to see. The House of van Gogh consists of just three rooms: van Gogh's room, the room of artist and fellow lodger Anton Hirschig, who was with Vincent through his last hours, and the slide show room, where you will see a brief slide presentation of perhaps ten minutes in length. The slide show is short but tastefully done, intermingling images of Vincent's paintings with excerpts from a few of his many letters, accompanied by a soundtrack. The slide show room has a capacity of just twenty-five people; only five at a time are allowed in van Gogh's room.

Van Gogh's room is a small, rather depressing and claustrophobic little place that probably measures less than nine feet by nine feet. One wall is protected with glass; apparently preparations are underway to obtain a van Gogh painting that will be permanently displayed here. A single, small window that is really more like a skylight allows a small splash of light to enter the room. This is probably the last thing he saw. On July 27, 1890, after taking his lunch at the Auberge he went back into the fields to paint. He shot himself with a revolver, yet he managed to stagger back to the Auberge. After his condition was discovered, Dr. Gachet and a local physician arrived, and his brother Theo was summoned from Paris. Theo was at his side when he died here at 1:30am on July 29, 1890. The room is completely empty except for a single straight-backed chair.

The House of van Gogh is open daily from 10am-6pm. Admission is 30Fr (about $4), 60Fr ($8) for families; tickets on sale 10am-5:30pm. Email contact@masion-de-van-gogh.com. Telephone (33) 01.30.36.60.60.

Artists and Auvers-sur-Oise

Auvers-sur-Oise has an impressive place in the history of French art. Camille Corot and Berthe Morisot had ties here. Charles-François Daubigny was a landscape painter famous for having a floating studio on the Oise from which he painted many scenes of the riverbank. Paul Cézanne lived here from 1872-1874, and his mentor, fellow French Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro stayed in nearby Pontoise for twelve years.

But by far the most famous resident of Auvers is Vincent van Gogh, who moved here in May of 1890 and lived here until he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in July of that year. More than seventy paintings are attributed to van Gogh during the slightly more than two months he lived here, many of which are among his most famous works. While he only sold one painting during his life (for 400 francs), his Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold at auction in 1990 for $82.5 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting until Pablo Picasso's Boy With a Pipe fetched $104.1 million in May of 2004.

As peaceful and quaint as Auvers-sur-Oise is today, its ties to van Gogh are hard to ignore. Placards are located throughout the town wherever a subject van Gogh painted stands. Additional markers on street signs point to van Gogh-related points of interest. And a statue of Vincent by Ossip Zadkine stands in the Parc van Gogh on rue du Général de Gaulle.

How van Gogh came to live in Auvers-sur-Oise

After he spent a temptestuous ten weeks with Paul Gauguin at Arles in the south of France that culminated with the famous incident in which Vincent mutilated his own ear on December 23, 1888, he was taken to the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Arles. After his release he began to recover from his breakdown, but suffered another attack in February, 1889.

By this time the Arles citizenry had had enough, and submitted a petition to the mayor demanding action. The superintendent of police ordered that van Gogh be readmitted to the hospital. This time he stayed about six weeks, but was allowed to leave during the day on supervised outings to paint and put his possessions in storage.

Vincent realized on his own that his mental state was precarious at best, and decided to check himself into the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, fifteen miles from Arles. He left Arles for good on May 8, 1889.

After his examination at the asylum, his physician was convinced that Vincent was suffering from a form of epilepsy, a diagnosis that remains the most likely scenario even today. The asylum at Saint-Rémy offered little treatment, however, and eventually Vincent began to plan his departure.

Vincent's mental and physical health had gradually improved. But on December 23, 1889, exactly a year after the ear-slashing incident, Vincent suffered another attack that lasted about a week. The attacks became more and more frequent and debilitating in the early months of 1890. His brother Theo worked in an art gallery in Paris, and the brothers agreed that it would be best if Vincent lived nearby. After some inquiries, Theo decided that the best course of action would be for Vincent to return to Paris and then enter the care of Dr. Paul Gachet (1828-1909), a homeopathic therapist living in Auvers-sur-Oise, himself an art collector and amateur artist. Vincent agreed with Theo's plans and checked himself out of the asylum in Saint-Rémy on May 16, 1890 and took an overnight train to Paris.

The beginning of the end

After arriving in Auvers-sur-Oise and meeting Dr. Gachet for the first time, Vincent wrote in his first letter to Theo from Auvers:

I have seen Dr. Gachet, who gives me the impression of being rather eccentric, but his experience as a doctor must keep him balanced enough to combat the nervous trouble from which he certainly seems to me to be suffering at least as seriously as I.

Gee, that must've sounded encouraging. Then, even more ominously in July, 1890:

I think we must not count on Dr. Gachet at all. First of all, he is sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much, so that's that. Now when one blind man leads another blind man, don't they both fall into the ditch?

So it appears that the writing was on the wall....

The placard marking the site where Vincent painted Auvers Town Hall on 14 July 1890.

Although he proved to be not much of a physician, Dr. Gachet did become a treasured friend of Vincent. He encouraged van Gogh to work "boldly on," which he did with abandon. Van Gogh described Auvers-sur-Oise as "profoundly beautiful," and some of his best loved canvases, such as Thatched Cottages at Cordeville, were painted in the brief time he spent here.

From Paris by Train

Auvers-sur-Oise is served by the SNCF lines. Trains run from the Gare St. Lazare and the Gare du Nord to Pontoise, and on to Auvers-sur-Oise. Travel time from Paris to Pontoise is about forty-five minutes. At Pontoise, you'll need to change trains and transfer to the local line which will take you the final ten minutes or so to Auvers. The Pontiose gare is large enough that there are several television monitors you can check to find the correct track for your connection to Auvers-sur-Oise.

Trains depart roughly on the half-hour during peak periods and roughly hourly during other times. Depending on when you go, total travel time will be from about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes each way.

We took the Gare du Nord surface train from Paris. Round trip fare was 59Fr (about $8).

You can check the SNCF train schedules here.

Tourist Office

Auvers-sur-Oise has a tourist office at the Manior des Colombières, Rue del la Sansonne, 95430, Auvers-sur-Oise. Telephone: (33) 01.30.36.10.06. They are open daily from 9:30am-12p.m. and 2pm-6pm. They have tourist information, guided tours, a gift shop, and a slideshow, "An Artist in Auvers." I bought a couple of the obligatory van Gogh postcards here. The House of van Gogh has a more extensive gift shop.

Accomodations

Most visitors come to Auvers-sur-Oise for the day from Paris. There are no hotels here. The closest one is the 3-star Novotel - Chateau de Maffliers, about a ten minute drive away (95560 Maffliers. Telephone (33) 01.34.08.35.35, fax (33) 01.34.69.97.49).

There's a bed and breakfast with three rooms located about 100 meters from the Notre Dame d'Auvers (La Ramure, 33 Rue du Montcel, 95430 Auvers-sur-Oise. Telephone (33) 01.30.36.79.32, (33) 06.81.31.30.86).

Other Points of Interest in Auvers-sur-Oise

There are several other museums and sights in Auvers-sur-Oise. Due to the time of year of our trip (December), most were closed for the season. A couple of note include:

L'Atelier de Daubigny
61 Rue Daubigny 95430 Auvers-sur-Oise
Tel (33) 01.34.48.03.03
Fax (33) 01.30.36.79.42
Hours: Thu-Sun 2pm-6pm, Easter through Nov.1
Admission: 28Fr

Daubigny's studio, constructed in 1861, restored and declared a historic monument in 1991.

Musée de l'absinthe
44 rue Alphonse Callé
95430 Auvers-sur-Oise
Tel (33) 01.30.36.83.26
Hours: Wed-Sun 11am-6pm, June - Sept.
Admission: Unknown

Museum dedicated to the alcoholic beverage banned in 1915.

Dr. Gachet's House
rue du Doctor Gachet
Details: Unknown