Van Gogh lived here

You can spend long, absorbing hours in Paris museums looking at wonderful paintings of French landscapes, but when, as now, spring begins to strike, the weary traveller sniffs the air and wants to explore in the open air. For fans of Vincent Van Gogh, the answer to museum malaise is a daytrip to Auvers-sur-Oise.

Vincent Van Gogh lived here: plaque on the Auberge Ravoux © Renata Rubnikowicz

Just an hour’s train ride from the capital, Auvers is where the painter spent the last two months of his troubled life. And what a prolific two months they were. In 70 days he produced 70 canvases, now in important galleries and private collections from Los Angeles to Tokyo to St Petersburg, as well as in Paris, at the Musée Rodin and, most of all, the Musée d’Orsay.

Re-opened earlier this month after its winter break,  Auberge Ravoux is where Vincent Van Gogh lived from 20 May 1890 until he died, in pain and distress, at the end of July the same year, two days after shooting himself in the chest.

Van Gogh's last home: Auberge Ravoux © Renata Rubnikowicz

He had come to this little town, a favourite with Impressionists, at the suggestion of his friend Camille Pissaro. Exhausted by life in Paris, he put himself under the care of a local homeopath, Dr Gachet (portrait in the Musée d’Orsay), who was a friend to many of the artists who came here. Every day he went out into the surrounding countryside to paint, returning to his attic room at night. It was the only room available and cost him just 3.50 francs a night.

Today visitors can climb the scruffy unrestored staircase to see his room. This has been restored with a reproduction of the original wallpaper and furniture similar to that Vincent would have used. There is a marble washstand, a chair and an iron bedstead, and that’s all.  After he died here, no one wanted to sleep in the tiny attic space, so it was used as a storeroom.

A sympathetic guide explains all this on the floor below, now a shop, but once the main bedroom floor. Vincent painted the view of the Mairie (town hall) from one of the front windows. Overall, the atmosphere is of great sympathy and respect for for the artist. After you have visited the room, go next door to a larger loft space where you can see an excellent audio-visual presentation of Vincent’s work in his last days.

The Mairie painted by Van Gogh © Renata Rubnikowicz

We didn’t have time for lunch at the Auberge Ravoux, though the simple room looks inviting, but instead doubled back down the narrow lane past the ticket office for Vincent’s room. We dropped in at the local tourist information office where you can buy a map (1€) to all the artistic sights in the area. Above the tourist office is a museum devoted to Daubigny, a precursor of the Impressionists. Some say Daubigny’s garden was the last thing Van Gogh painted.  Sadly, we did not have a chance to visit Dr Gachet’s house, the chateau d’Auvers (which is holding guinguette – al fresco – musical evenings every Sunday in March), or the many other sites in the vicinity painted by Cézanne, Pissaro and other Impressionists and members of the Barbizon school.

We did walk up the well-signposted lanes to the church (the painting is now in the Musée d’Orsay). In the early spring sunshine, the traditional houses sit like well-fed cats, calm and sleepy. Passing them, you feel almost back in Vincent’s day. Above the church, the hill climbs to open wheat fields, where the descendants of the crows Vincent painted still caw and wheel.

The wheatfield with crows that Van Gogh painted © Renata Rubnikowicz

Up here, away from the church, you find the crowded cemetery  where Vincent and Theo, his brother, great friend and supporter, lie side by side near the wall, simple white headstones marking their graves. At the end, Vincent was not as alone as he felt himself to be. He had many friends in Auvers, and they were joined at his funeral by others from Paris such as Père Tanguy (portrait, Musée Rodin) and of course, his brother Theo, who only lived six months longer than Vincent.

The church at Auvers, painted by Van Gogh © Renata Rubnikowicz

Despite the fact that Vincent was only 37 when he died so tragically, I didn’t feel this was a sombre visit, though it did leave me moved and thoughtful. Not only did Vincent leave us so many exceptional paintings, the people of Auvers-sur-Oise are working on one of his last wishes. Shortly before he died, Vincent, whose paintings received little success in his lifetime, wrote: “Some day or other I believe I shall find a way to have an exhibition of my own in a café.”

Van Gogh's church at Auvers now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay © Musée d'Orsay / Sophie Boegly

A notice tells us that one day – we don’t yet know when – the Auberge Ravoux hopes to be able fulfil Van Gogh’s simple dream and put one of his paintings on display, here in the attic bedroom where he stacked his canvases to dry each night.

Need to know
Auberge Ravoux: open 10.00-18.00, Wed-Sun, March-early Nov, 6€. More information about Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise at www.vangoghfrance.com and www.vangoghsdream.org

Getting there
Auvers-sur-Oise is about an hour by train from Gare du Nord or Gare St-Lazare. Take the train to Pontoise (the end of the line), then change onto a little local train (complete with guard and whistle) for the few stops to Auvers-sur-Oise. About 10.30€ return. Train times: www.transilien.com