About a month ago we had a lovely visit to the town of Auvers-sur-Oise, a picturesque town not far outside of Paris. Its beautiful setting inspired Vincent Van Gogh to creating some of his most beautiful work.
Vincent Van Gogh's oil painting of the Auvers Church located at the Orsay Museum, whose work was never a "photographic resemblance"... but rather based on ..."our modern taste for color"....
This oil painting is one of the 80 paintings Vincent Van Gogh made during his short, 70-day stay in Auvers-sur-Oise. There we also visited Van Gogh's attic room at the Auberge Ravoux where he died on July 29th, reportedly from a self-inflicted gun-shot.
125 years after his death, the mystery about Vincent Van Gogh lives on.
Church at Auvers-sur-Oise in September, 2015. © Elizabeth Rand
In 2012, American, Pulitzer-prize winning authors of Jackson Pollack, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith claim in a biography entitled: "The Life : Van Gogh” that he was accidentally or intentionally murdered by a 16-year old French boy. This claim is refuted in a book published in 2012 by Alain Rohan ("Vincent van Gogh: Aurait-on retrouvé l'arme du suicide?").
What counts for the people of Auvers is that Vincent be remembered for the beauty of his works, some 900 paintings in only a period of ten years. Shortly before his death he wrote his sister Wilhelmina that he wanted his works, especially his portraits to "appear after a century to the people who are living then as apparitions . .."
© Elizabeth Rand
© Elizabeth Rand
Our next Paris Café Talk get-together will take place on November 22nd at 3 pm at the at the Café Maure of the Grande Mosquée of Paris 75005. After a successful visit to the Mosque in June, 2015 now, guest host, Sondess will take us behind the scenes to discover the ritual involved in the preparation of the Aroussa, the bride. And we are sure to go home with some Oriental beauty secrets.