Auvers (3/7)

Okay, I guess I’ll just continue with this business of writing blog posts in Pages to post them online later, since the Binets have WiFi but don’t know the password for their network.

On Tuesday, (the 2nd, cos who knows when I’ll actually get this posted) Marlène and I drove to Auvers sur-Oise, since Jean-Jacques was still in Brittany. Auvers is best known as the deathplace of Vincent Van Gogh, but it was also the home of several of his artistic contemporaries such as Daubigny. It was a pleasant drive, and Marlène pointed out various things about the towns we passed through, among them Anguine, where Jean-Jacques managed a pharmacy for eighteen years.

We crossed the Oise river and first visited the cemetery where Van Gogh and his brother Theo are buried. Marlène picked some rose petals from a nearby bush and scattered them over the tombstones. I wanted to explore the whole cemetery, but we had to get to the town’s chateau for the Impressionists’ Museum multimedia tour.

The tour was done by audioguide. Normally I’m not crazy about guided tours by humans, much less one done by machine (because it’s one step closer to the Robot Revolution), but this one was different. I didn’t really know what to expect from an exhibition that prided itself on having no actual Impressionist works involved, and some parts were kitschy, but in its entirety it was incredibly informative and engaging. The audioguide led through a series of rooms in the museum which were each dedicated to showing a crucial part of the life the Impressionists led in Paris, from the glamour of high society to the daily lives of the prostitutes who were usually hired as models. Having no paintings, I noted with pride that the museum had plenty of photographs from the 1860s and 70s, showing how Impressionism and photography influenced each other. It was also interesting to see how the disagreement among the Impressionists over the importance of railroads and bridges in paintings marked the first roots of Expressionism and its emphasis on mechanical forms.

After the museum I walked through the town while Marlène took the car to meet me at the church. The streets of Auvers have been kept as close as possible to how Van Gogh left them; there were climbing roses everywhere, and all the buildings retained their nineteenth-century façades. The last year of Van Gogh’s life at Auvers was his most prolific period, because he painted night and day to stave off thoughts of suicide, and it’s easy to see how the town constantly provided inspiration.