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Tree Roots

{{Short description|Painting by Vincent van Gogh}}

{{Infobox artwork

| image_file= Vincent van Gogh - Tree Roots and Trunks (F816).jpg

| image_upright= 1

| title= Tree Roots

| artist= Vincent van Gogh

| year= 1890

| medium= Oil on canvas

| catalogue={{Flatlist}}

{{Endflatlist}}

| height_metric= 50.0

| width_metric= 100.0

| height_imperial= 19.7

| width_imperial= 40.6

| metric_unit=cm

| imperial_unit=in

| museum=Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

| movement = Post Impressionism

}}

Tree Roots is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in July 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.{{cite book|title=Van Gogh in Auvers: His Last Days|year=2010|first1=Wouter|last1=van der Veen|first2=Peter|last2=Knapp|publisher=The Monacelli Press|isbn=978-1-58093-301-8|page= 242}}{{cite book|last=de la Faille|first=Jacob Baart|title=The works of Vincent van Gogh|year=1970|publisher= Meulenhoff|location=Amsterdam|page=307|oclc=300160639}} Likely Van Gogh's final painting, it is an example of the double-square canvases that he employed in his last landscapes.

Background

Van Gogh spent the last few months of his life in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town just north of Paris, after he left an asylum at Saint-Rémy in May 1890.{{cite book|title=Van Gogh: The Life|year=2011|publisher=Profile Books|first1=Steven|last1=Naifeh|first2=Gregory|last2= White Smith|isbn=978-1-84668-010-6|page=822 ff.}} The painting is considered by some to be his last painting before his death in late July 1890.{{cite web |url= https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0195V1962|title= Tree Roots, 1890 |publisher= Van Gogh Museum}}

Jan Hulsker considers it the most original of his double-square canvases. The viewer thinks he can identify tree roots and trunks, but is hard put to identify the subject as a whole.Hulsker (1980) p. 476 Van der Veen and Knapp comment that in this painting, as also in Undergrowth with Two Figures, the painting itself and not the subject is pre-eminent, heralding abstract painting and German expressionism.van der Veen and Knapp (2010) pp. 164, 242

In 1882, while at The Hague, Van Gogh had made a study of tree roots, Study of a Tree (below), which he had completed at the same time as a larger version (now lost) of Sorrow. In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh said that he wanted to express something of life's struggle in these drawings. It is not known whether he had returned to the same thoughts with his 1890 Tree Roots. The letters give no hint and the colours are perhaps too bright for such sombre thoughts.

File:Rue Daubigny, about 1906.jpg

On April 14, 1991 Tree Roots was stolen from the Van Gogh museum along with 19 other paintings. Tree Roots was successfully recovered.{{cite web |last1=Sheppard |first1=Felicity |title=Number Three – recovered artwork |url=https://www.keystoneunderwriting.com.au/articles/3-20-artworks-by-vincent-van-gogh/ |publisher=KeyStone}}

In 2020, Wouter Van der Veen, scientific director of Institut Van Gogh determined the probable location where the painting was made, based on an historical postcard, to be on the rue Daubigny in Auvers-sur-Oise.{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53568021 |title=Van Gogh: Postcard helps experts 'find location of final masterpiece' |work=BBC News |access-date=29 July 2020}} He confirmed his finding with a historical photograph from circa 1907 in 2021. The location is about 150 metres from Auberge Ravoux, Van Gogh's hotel at the time.{{cite web |last1=Boffey |first1=Daniel |title=Place depicted in Van Gogh's final painting found with help of postcard |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jul/28/location-van-gogh-final-painting-tree-roots-postcard |website=The Guardian |date=28 July 2020}}

File:Vincent van Gogh - Undergrowth with Two Figures (F773).jpg|alt=A couple are walking in the woods. There are flowers everywhere and the tree trunks are violet. The couple seem almost to merge into the woods.|Undergrowth with Two Figures, oil on canvas 50 x 100, late June 1890 (F773, JH2041).{{cite web |url= http://www.vggallery.com/painting/p_0773.htm|title= Undergrowth with Two Figures|author=Brooks, D |work=The Vincent van Gogh Gallery, endorsed by Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam | publisher=David Brooks (self-published) }}{{cite web|title= Letter 891: To Theo van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Tuesday, 24 June 1890|url= http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let891/letter.html|work=Vincent van Gogh: The Letters|publisher=Van Gogh Museum|at= Note 10|quote= ... one that makes a pendant of undergrowth, lilac trunks of poplars ...}}{{cite web|title= Letter 896: To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, Wednesday, 2 July 1890|url= http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let896/letter.html|work=Vincent van Gogh: The Letters|publisher=Van Gogh Museum|at= Note 5|quote= Then undergrowth, violet trunks of poplars which cross the landscape perpendicularly like columns ... [includes a sketch]}}

File:Vincent van Gogh - Study of a Tree (F933).jpg|alt=A drawing of gnarled black tree roots|Tree roots in a sandy ground ('Les racines'), pencil, black chalk, brush in ink, brown and grey wash, opaque watercolour on watercolour paper, April–May 1882, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo (F933, JH142).{{cite web|url=http://www.kmm.nl/object/KM%20117.091%20RECTO/Tree-roots-in-a-sandy-ground-Les-racines|title=Tree roots in a sandy ground ('Les racines')|publisher=Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130112073914/http://www.kmm.nl/object/KM%20117.091%20RECTO/Tree-roots-in-a-sandy-ground-Les-racines|archive-date=2013-01-12}}{{cite web |url= http://www.vggallery.com/watercolours/p_0933r.htm|title= Tree Roots in a Sandy Ground ("Les Racines")|author=Brooks, D |work=The Vincent van Gogh Gallery, endorsed by Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam | publisher=David Brooks (self-published) }}{{cite web|title= Letter 222: To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 1 May 1882|url= http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let222/letter.html|work=Vincent van Gogh: The Letters|publisher=Van Gogh Museum|at= Paragraph 5|quote= I wanted to express something of life’s struggle ... in those gnarled black roots with their knots.}}

File:Post Card rue Daubigny.jpg|Post Card rue Daubigny, around 1910

See also

Works

{{Reflist|group=Works}}

Letters

{{Reflist|group=Letters}}

References

{{Reflist}}

Bibliography

  • de la Faille, Jacob-Baart. The Works of Vincent van Gogh: His Paintings and Drawings. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1970. {{ISBN|978-1-55660-811-7}}
  • Hulsker, Jan. The Complete Van Gogh. Oxford: Phaidon, 1980. {{ISBN|978-0-71482-028-6}}
  • Naifeh, Steven; Smith, Gregory White. Van Gogh: The Life. Profile Books, 2011. {{ISBN|978-1-84668-010-6}}
  • van der Veen, Wouter; Knapp, Peter. Van Gogh in Auvers: His Last Days. Monacelli Press, 2010. {{ISBN|978-1-58093-301-8}}

External links

  • [https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0195V1962 Tree Roots] at the Van Gogh Museum website
  • {{commons-inline}}

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Category:Paintings by Vincent van Gogh

Category:Paintings of Auvers-sur-Oise by Vincent van Gogh

Category:1890 paintings

Category:Collection of the Van Gogh Museum

Category:Oil on canvas paintings

Category:Paintings of trees

Category:Plant roots