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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2013 20:06:31 GMT
Yesterday while channel surfing, I came across the Doctor Who episode about Vincent Van Gogh. Obviously I have seen it before, and it happens to be one of my absolute favourite episodes, so I was rooted to the spot from start to finish. For anybody unfamiliar with Doctor Who or even just this episode, this little review and clip should tell you everything you need to know. So this morning I decided that it was time to return to Auvers-sur-Oise after a 42 year hiatus. I biked to Gare du Nord and had to pierce the longest Eurostar check-in queue that I have ever seen. I'm thinking that they probably had a "suspicious baggage" problem and had closed off the departure lounges until the bomb squad had done their job. There are no direct trains to Auvers-sur-Oise during the week, but there are two ways to connect to the line that serves it -- through Pontoise or through Persan Beaumont. Since there was a train about to leave going to Persan Beaumont, that's the one I took. I remain in admiration of the new air conditioned commuter trains and their colourful but not over-the-top decor. Once you get towards the end of the line, the stations are out in the fields. In Persan Beaumont, it was time to get on one of the old hot trains. The other train was back on its way to Paris. But about 20 minutes later, I arrived in Auvers. The tunnel under the tracks is an exuberant if not well executed tribute to the art of Van Gogh. And then I had to choose where to go first. The small Parc Van Gogh had a sculpture of the painter by Belrusian artist Zadkine. The main street of Auvers seemed quite ordinary. The covered market was not super active in July.
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Post by fgrsk8r1970 on Jul 25, 2013 20:29:10 GMT
Very exciting start Can't wait to see where you go next !
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2013 20:30:47 GMT
It actually contains the town's pride and joy, a super duper audiovisual attraction about Van Gogh and Impressionism, but I was just not in the mood to coop myself up in a château on a day like this. I will go back some time on a cold and dreary day.
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Post by htmb on Jul 25, 2013 20:36:59 GMT
Oh, Kerouac. I am so glad you've done this report and can't wait to look over everything carefully when I have time. Now I am going to start kicking myself again for not making it back to Auvers this summer when I had the chance.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2013 21:05:20 GMT
Photography of Vincent's room, where he stayed for 70 days and in which he died, was forbidden. It was tiny and empty. All of the people who complain about the size of Parisian hotel rooms would stop complaining if they saw this one. He did not paint in it, because it was forbidden, so he carried all of his stuff out to the fields every day. He painted 80 paintings during those 70 days. He apparently shot himself in the fields but managed to walk back to his room where he died after 30 hours. The inn only had 7 rooms but that one was locked up for years since obviously nobody wants to stay in a room where somebody has died.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2013 21:22:52 GMT
And then I was on my way back to Paris, via Pontoise this time. Thank you, Vincent for all of your paintings. Thank you, Theo for trying to take care of Vincent. Thank you, Dr. Who for sending me to Auvers-sur-Oise for the morning.
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Post by htmb on Jul 26, 2013 0:33:27 GMT
Very nice report, Kerouac. Some of the places in your photos look very familiar, but on our trip in 2009, I only got to see just a little bit of the town and nothing substantial of the church. My sweet daughter actually took a tumble out of the van in which we were riding, so that was the most "memorable" part of the stop for us.
When we visited the room where Van Gogh died I remember feeling very sad and empty. I don't typically relate that way to places, but I think the smallness of the place contributed somewhat. We were also led into a nearby room and shown a film. Maybe about Van Gogh's life and/or time in Auevers? I don't remember much about it except I wanted to get out into the fresh air as soon as possible.
The church was being refurbished during that time. The exterior was covered with scaffolding and the doors to the interior were locked. We did walk up the hill from the church, and then through the fields to the little cemetary. Such a tidy, barren little place. I remember thinking how simple and ordinary it was. And then....the two graves side by side. It was very touching.
I would love to go back to Auvers, spend time walking around the town, and go down to the river. Maybe next trip I will actually get there, but in the meantime it sure is nice to travel there with the help of your narrative and camera lens.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2013 4:33:03 GMT
There is still a little slideshow in one of the rooms next to the infamous bedroom. It is both too short and too long. Too short because it barely scratches the surface of all of the things there are to say, and too long, because the next group is forced to wait outside the building until the slideshow has ended, which must be quite irritating. I was in the first group of the day, so I didn't have that problem but they should probably move that to another building for greater efficiency. Naturally, they don't want anybody to miss it, though, since you exit through the gift shop like in so many museums and monuments.
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Post by bjd on Jul 26, 2013 5:40:53 GMT
It looks like a pretty little place, although I do wonder if the town's only claim to existence is the connection with Van Gogh. How far from Paris is it? Interesting too that it's on the Japanese tourist trail, with signs in Japanese.
Very few tourists for a nice summer day.
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Post by mossie on Jul 26, 2013 7:28:23 GMT
A great tour to remember a great artist. I have to admit that I haven't watched the Doctor since my eldest boy used to hide behind the sofa from the various monsters. However I was struck by how cleverly old and new was meshed painlessly together in the clip you showed us. Perhaps I will start watching it again.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2013 9:49:32 GMT
How far from Paris is it? Interesting too that it's on the Japanese tourist trail, with signs in Japanese. Very few tourists for a nice summer day. It took a little over an hour to get there on the commuter trains with the connection. I imagine that the (rare) direct trains that run on the weekend probably take about 45 minutes. The distance by car is 35km and takes just as long as the weekday commuter trains. I left Paris at 8:10 a.m. and after wandering around a bit in Auvers, I was at the entrance to the Van Gogh house right at 10 a.m. with a half dozen other people. You can see a few of them walking down to the place in the photo after the picture of the 2CV. None of them were French but they were European, except for one Indonesian lady. Just as we emerged from the slideshow, there was a tour group of "English speakers" waiting to get in, and I imagine that the big group of Japanese was not far behind. And as I returned from the cemetery, I crossed a pretty big group (30+) of British teenagers. This makes me think that the town could possibly get a bit crowded in the afternoon. I would imagine that the bus tours go to a few places besides Auvers in the area, such as L'Isle Adam, Pontoise and Conflans-Sainte-Honorine which are all within a few kilometers. The Japanese have a cult for French (and assimilated) impressionists since the impressionists were influenced by Japanese art. I would imagine that is why I encountered huge masses of Japanese in Marseille and Avignon as they were touring Provence.
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Post by bjd on Jul 26, 2013 10:16:37 GMT
The Japanese have a cult for French (and assimilated) impressionists since the impressionists were influenced by Japanese art. I would imagine that is why I encountered huge masses of Japanese in Marseille and Avignon as they were touring Provence. Yes, I have seen photos of Monet's dining room -- there were Japanese prints on the walls. The Japanese also have a cult for Anne of Green Gables -- lots of Japanese tours to Prince Edward Island to see the house of a fictional character.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2013 10:24:12 GMT
That's like all of the Chinese tourists who visit (totally uninteresting) Montargis, "cradle of the revolution" since Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping lived there and got the idea of creating the Chinese communist party after observing the local French communist party.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2013 11:56:30 GMT
What a charming village! Well worth the train ride.
I love the "hidden" houses and most especially the beautiful cottage gardens, and their unmanicured wildness. My preferred landscape gardening style.
The field of wheat is stunning.
I remember precisely when and how I felt when I saw my first Van Gogh painting (MOMA,NYC). My eyes instantly welled up and when I looked over at my husband, the same...
The signage is definitely OTT and really detracts from the the charm of the village.
Thanks for taking the time to go and gift us with this report.
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Post by htmb on Jul 26, 2013 12:01:27 GMT
My 2009 visit was towards the end of June, and we went in the afternoon. There didn't seem to be a lot of people around. Perhaps that had more to due with the closed church, but just looking at your photos gives me the impression that Auvers is a little more spruced up for he tourist trade than it was four years ago.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2013 13:39:02 GMT
The field of wheat is stunning. Without a viewfinder in dazzling sunlight, I'm sure you can imagine that taking pictures of the wheat fields was pure guesswork. I couldn't see a thing on my screen!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2013 15:55:02 GMT
Good guesswork. Many times the best pics are flukes. It does give one an idea of what Van Gogh was seeing and inspired to capture so stunningly.
I was also intrigued to read that the French impressionist painters were inspired by Japanese art. It does make sense when one thinks about it but, I had never known this.
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Post by htmb on Jul 26, 2013 17:07:53 GMT
Kerouac, thank you for agreeing to let me add my photos to your thread. I now have an even greater need to visit Auvers because I see we hardly took any pictures! I suppose, since we had taken so many photos at Giverny earlier in the day, we were all tired out! I’ve posted just a few of my daughter’s photos below, leaving out the carousel, which looks like any other, and the graves of Vincent and Theo, which looks just like your photo. Here are a couple of pictures of the church. You can see there is some sort of a barricade preventing us from getting any closer, due to the scaffolding on the tower where there was work being done. Here’s DD photo taken of the view from the cemetery. And her picture of the wheat fields. I do have a lot of pictures from Giverny, which was the first time I realized the Japanese influence, as well. I should have known better, but having skipped been woefully unable to attend university humanities classes as much as possible I suppose I missed that lesson.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2013 17:16:39 GMT
If you do a Giverny thread, I will add to it sooner or later. I plan to return there, but not until next spring.
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Post by lagatta on Jul 26, 2013 17:59:22 GMT
Yes, western Impressionists were very much influenced by Japanese art, in particular by contemporary woodblock prints of the era that had the same kind of immediacy and angles very much at odds with classical Western perspective. I googled Japanese influence on Impressionism and got many hits, including academic books. I'm going to try to find this one: The Great Wave: The Influence of Japanese Woodcuts on French Prints Par Colta Feller Ives [New York] Metropolitan Museum of Art; distributed by New York Graphic Society [1974] worldcat.org , which came up, actually displayed some Montréal libraries that have it. Unfortunately for me these were all university libraries, and I no longer have the researcher's card I had when doing graduate work. But I'll check at the public library system and La Bibliothèque nationale du Québec (BANQ). They might also have it in a French version, if one exists, and I wouldn't care whether such a volume is in French or the original English. If not, I'll have a look at it at a university library. I was at a show about Renoir some years back at the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa, and some of the patrons shown had "Japanese rooms" that of course remained very European, but were a relief to modern eyes after the heavy furnishings of the second half of the 19th Century. I've never been there, though I've been to other towns in L'Oise. It is true that one never sees the townspeople much except on market day and on the main street of the towns. Edited to add: I didn't remember that Theo had died even younger than Vincent, and that he also apparently "went mad" and died from the advanced effects of syphillis: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_van_Gogh_%28art_dealer%29
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on Jul 26, 2013 18:15:03 GMT
I've been through Auvers at least a few times this year on bike tours with customers, cycling through the nearby Vexin region. You can also get there from Gare Saint-Lazare, changing trains in Pontoise. RER C to Pontoise is also an option but a longer one. Those new commuter trains are indeed nice but are woefully lacking in space for bikes. Grrrr. Based on recent (and speculative) research it's not so clear that Vincent shot himself but may have in fact been shot by some local teens (probably by accident) who used to torment him as he was an odd person. I visited Van Gogh's house just after this research was made public and they were already informing visitors that some of the info you would see about his death may be inaccurate, although it will never be able to be proven. Interesting nonetheless: www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15333801 Very nice report as usual k2.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2013 18:25:50 GMT
Yes, I have read that other possibility concerning Vincent's demise. There is no way to "prefer" one or the other -- we just wish that he had lived happily and longer.
I went back to Paris through the Saint Lazare route, just because I didn't want to see all of the same stations again. Since the train went through Conflans-Sainte-Honorine I had to refrain from getting off again to complete my other report as promised. That will happen later.
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Post by mossie on Jul 26, 2013 19:02:21 GMT
Thanks again. I had never realised the Japanese connection with the Impressionists, but then I am a Philistine
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Post by fgrsk8r1970 on Jul 26, 2013 19:24:16 GMT
What a wonderful and interesting report. We only made it to Renaissance in school so I am learning a lot here. What a lovely little town. I won't have a chance to visit this time around but who knows - i'll put it on the long list of hopefully someday Thank you !
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Post by htmb on Jul 27, 2013 14:03:48 GMT
It would be nice to sit alongside the river under the trees and sip a glass of chilled wine from La Terrasse after a day of walking around Auvers.
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karenlaughlin
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Post by karenlaughlin on Aug 11, 2013 14:39:01 GMT
somehow i just found this. quite moving and well done. such a great man, so sad and troubled. just another casualty of mental illness. a shame. God rest you, Vincent.
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Post by lola on Aug 19, 2013 14:54:24 GMT
Wonderful, K. And I love the clip. I've missed out on the doctors all this time.
Thank you for doing this.
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Post by tod2 on Aug 20, 2013 7:29:39 GMT
I missed this one too - how I don't quite know but am very grateful Lola brought the thread up again! It's a wonderful photo essay Kerouac and I would love to go there. Once before I mentioned Van Gogh's third brother should be found and laid to rest next to his kin. He lies somewhere in a deserted old graveyard here in a small town - the grave is unmarked and so far nobody has bothered to get one of those new tech body scanners to find him. I hope someone, sometime, might do that.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 20, 2013 14:33:26 GMT
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Post by lugg on Aug 26, 2013 20:15:17 GMT
I so enjoyed reading this report and looking at your photos K2 , thank you.
....another place on my bucket list.
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