Church in Auvers-sur-Oise by Vincent Van Gogh

The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise, View from the Chevet by Vincent Van Gogh, oil on canvas 1890, is a landscape painting of an ancient, massive, Gothic style cathedral church with rounded apse and tall bell tower rising from a brightly lit, grassy hilltop into a dark blue, swirling sky. In the foreground on the forked road walks the figure of a lone woman through the bright green patches of grass. The painting depicts the church from the chevet, a rounded hemi-cyclic choir structure with tall, pointed arched windows. Van Gogh constructs the picture in massive contrasts of light and dark with jarringly expressive colour, with the glowing, warm shades of green and yellow of the brightly lit flat shapes of grass and earth, colourful greys of the church stonework, and deep blue sky modelled briskly into deep blue-blacks. The massive cathedral edifice rises sharply into the dark ultramarine sky, in an exuberantly expressive portrayal of religious awe amid nature. Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890) was a Dutch painter of the Post-Impressionist movement known for bold, expressive drawing, swirling brushstrokes and intense, heightened colours. In early adulthood Van Gogh worked as an art dealer, teacher and pastor before taking up the full time study of drawing and painting in his late twenties. Influenced by Rembrandt, the 19th century Realists and Barbizon school, Van Gogh’s early paintings featured studies of workers and peasants in sombre earth tones. Moving to France in 1886, Van Gogh met with the startling innovations of the Impressionist painters and began to apply their approach to colour and subject matter, which continued into the mature style for which the artist is most renowned. Van Gogh produced many hundreds of drawings and paintings including portraits, landscapes, still life and flower paintings, and numerous self-portraits that became a dominating influence on the modern art of the 20th century and made him one of the most popular artists of all time.