In Auvers-sur-Oise, the French town where the Tree roots The latest work by Van Gogh shows that, four days after its discovery, the trees mainly cause unrest and arguments. It remained unclear for 130 years where Van Gogh made his last work. The location was unveiled this week.
The place is now tipped as a global cultural heritage. However, those involved mainly discuss who owns the land and who owns the trees. The roots are behind a gray shot, to the frustration of residents and tourists.
Last canvas
Vincent van Gogh spent the last months of his life in Auvers-sur-Oise. In the cemetery hangs the invitation for his funeral on July 30, 1890. “At half past three in the afternoon exactly,” it says. Van Gogh had shot himself in the chest that Sunday before.
In the hours before he fired that bullet, he was working on one last canvas: Tree roots. Nobody knew where he made his work, until the Dutch Van Gogh expert Wouter van der Veen recently published one important discovery deed.
Watch the unraveling of the mystery surrounding Van Gogh here:
Van Gogh painted the tree roots in the street behind the inn where he was staying at the time: Rue Daubigny in Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris. In that place you can still see the stumps that also adorned the painting from 1890. An old postcard led Van der Veen to the right place.
Van der Veen’s research work can be called historical. It has art historical value because it gives Van Gogh’s last days a new meaning. And it has cultural value: the location where the painter was on the street with his brushes can still be visited.
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Then something new is discovered, something important, and then we shouldn’t see it!
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Residents and tourists complain on the conveyor belt: the tree roots are completely hidden from view by high wooden panels.
“It’s a shame, it’s a shame!” Shouts a man walking down Rue Daubigny. “It is crazy to screw everything up here,” said Delphine Avrillon, the ‘neighbor’ of the trees. “Then something new is discovered, something important, and then we shouldn’t see it!” And on top of that dissatisfaction, there has also been an argument. Because who owns those trees? And who is responsible for it?
Private land
Explorer Wouter van der Veen works for the local Institut Van Gogh. This is committed to protecting the painter’s heritage. But the trees in question appear to be on private land of a resident of Auvers-sur-Oise, Jean-François Serlinger.
And that is again disputed by the municipality. There is the idea that the roots are just not on private land, but just on public roads.
Surveyor
It is hardly visible on the spot. The street, a kind of curb, a wall and an elevation of the earth: it criss-crosses.
“This is a rural town. There isn’t even a sidewalk here,” Serlinger says, showing the area with the tree roots. “The municipality has now appointed a surveyor to take measurements and we have also appointed a surveyor who will measure.”
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The tree roots from Van Gogh’s last painting are now behind bulkheads
The city council itself is also in his stomach with the wooden balustrade. It was put down again by the Institut Van Gogh, but very close to the trees. The institute also had the grounds and tree stumps cleaned. In particular, a lot of ivy was removed from the roots. “I personally think it was all done a bit quickly,” says Mayor Isabelle Mézières. “I am very concerned about the condition of the roots.”
It is whispered at the town hall that Van Gogh’s trees may even have been damaged during the work.
Village quarrel
And the Institut Van Gogh complains again: it had a beautiful black fence ready to put around the trees. But that was not allowed to be posted, because of the disputed property rights of the land. That is why those wooden panels had to be placed temporarily.
In Auvers-sur-Oise, for example, everyone involved quarrels on the street. A village quarrel that followed a world-class discovery.
Landowner Jean-François Serlinger and the mayor avoid each other. Serlinger hired a lawyer. And when the Institut presented the location last week, a nice photo was taken with everyone involved. But the mayor is missing from that photo.
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The mayor is missing from the Van Gogh unveiling
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“This has become an issue that has all grown above our heads,” Mayor Mézières now says. “This is a national matter, this is national cultural heritage. This transcends me as mayor, but it also transcends Mr Serlinger and the Institut Van Gogh.”
Her solution: “I have passed on the entire file to the French Ministry of Culture. It now has to decide who is responsible for the future and maintenance of Van Gogh’s trees.”
And as long as that file is in the Ministry in Paris, the people in Auvers-sur-Oise will see only a gray wooden wall for the time being. And not the scene that Vincent Van Gogh captured in 1890, just hours before putting his gun to his chest.
