The exact location of the final work by Dutch master Vincent van Gogh has been pinpointed after being hidden in plain view among a tangle of roots next to a rural lane near Paris and experts say it gives them new insights into the anguished painter’s mental state on the day he is widely believed to have fatally shot himself.
A faded picture postcard featuring a man standing next to a bicycle on a back street of the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, 35 kilometers (21 miles) north of Paris, has led a Dutch researcher to what is now thought to be the exact location depicted in the troubled artist’s final work, “Tree Roots,” which Van Gogh painted on the day he suffered a fatal gunshot wound on July 27, 1890.
The village’s mayor Isabella Mezieres labelled the discovery “unique and exceptional.”
She said it would allow those visting the site the chance to put themselves “in the skin of an exceptional painter and imagine his feelings in front of his roots.”
The discovery, by Wouter van der Veen, scientific director of the French-based Van Gogh Institute, provides a new glimpse of the artist in his final hours.
It was made, in part, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.
Stuck at home in France during the country’s strict two-month lockdown, Van der Veen used the extra time to order his numerous files and documents on Van Gogh, including digitizing images such as the old postcard from Auvers-sur-Oise.
One day in late April, during a phone conversation, he saw the card on his computer screen and it suddenly struck him that he was looking at the location of “Tree Roots.”
He wasn’t able to visit the site for several weeks, but had a friend in the village visit and also took a virtual trip down the lane using Google’s Street View.
Villagers know the spot and the main tree root well, even giving it the name “the elephant” because of its shape, according to Van der Veen.
Van Gogh died on 29 July 1890.
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