Tree Roots

Tree Roots is an oil on canvas that Vincent van Gogh painted in 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise, and it is now held by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. At first glance, its patchwork of vivid colour looks almost abstract, and some critics have cast Van Gogh as a forerunner of abstract art. Looked at more closely, however, it shows a tangle of roots against a brown and yellow earth background, scattered with plants and leaves. The upper part is fully resolved, while the lower part is only partly drawn, which is unusual for a painter who normally finished what he started.

The subject had a long history in his work. Van Gogh had drawn black, twisted roots as early as 1882 and, as he wrote to his brother Theo, wanted them to express the struggle of life. The 1890 painting returns to that idea in a brighter, more colourful form.

For a long time it was thought that his last work was Wheatfield with Crows, but his letters showed that canvas had been painted in early July. In 2012, Louis van Tilborgh and Bert Maes linked a description by Andries Bonger, Theo's brother-in-law, of a sunlit, lively undergrowth to this picture, suggesting it was probably the final work. Later, in 2020, Wouter van der Veen, with the support of Van Tilborgh and Teio Meedendorp, reconstructed his movements on 27 July 1890 and judged it highly probable that this was his last painting. A postcard from around 1900 to 1910 shows the exact spot, some 150 metres from the inn where he lodged. On this reconstruction he painted it in the afternoon, shortly before shooting himself, and died two days later.

In 2023, the photographer Raymond Martinez suggested that the upper part might conceal a profile self-portrait with a closed eye, resembling a drawing Dr Paul Gachet made after the painter's death. This idea has not been confirmed by scientific studies or by specialist institutions, so it should be read as speculation.

Painter

Vincent van Gogh

Date

1890

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

50 × 100 cm

Museum

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Movement

Post-impressionism

Genre

landscape painting

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