The Musée d'Orsay houses several canvases by Vincent Van Gogh, including two interesting self-portraits, but the The Church at Auvers has a special charm because it represents the most important dilemma that gripped the artist in his last years of life.
You should know that Auvers-sur-Oise is a village located some thirty kilometers from Paris, on the banks of the Oise River, where Van Gogh had taken refuge in the spring of 1890, after leaving the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Rémy, to entrust himself to the care of Dr Paul Gachet.
Incredibly, in just two months, the painter created almost seventy works here, some even estimate as many as one hundred, but two of them are extremely significant: Wheatfield with Crows and The Church at Auvers that you are looking at, the last one he put his hand to before committing suicide.
See how the church appears distorted, almost flickering and unstable, just like the artist's soul. The colors are dark and disturbing. The painter's intention was obviously not to faithfully reproduce the pretty Gothic-style church in the village, but to convey his feelings. Now observe how at the bottom the scene is painted in lighter colors and the junction between two roads is emphasized.
Well, this crossroads most likely represents Van Gogh's need to choose a path, to find a solution to his malaise: to die or to learn to live with pain and suffering.
In the same days that Vincent painted this church, he also painted Wheatfield with Crows, now in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, where the fork in the road is also the protagonist, but there are three roads represented. Perhaps the artist glimpsed a third option, perhaps a recovery from his illness but, as you well know, he died at the end of July 1890, after a long agony, shooting himself in the stomach and, as on other occasions in the past, without anyone being able to do anything to save him except helplessly witness his end.
Here's an interesting fact: From Vincent's letters to his beloved brother Theo, the painter predicted as early as 1883 that he would not live long, indicating that he would die within ten years at most, as indeed he did.
Language: English