Sunflowers (36 page)

Authors: Sheramy Bundrick

Tags: #Historical Fiction

A Few Words About Places…

A plaque marks the site of Vincent’s yellow house on the Place Lamartine in Arles, destroyed by Allied bombs in 1944. Bernard Soulé’s hotel still stands, but the buildings that once housed Marguerite Favier’s grocery shop, the Restaurant Vénissat, and the Café de la Gare were damaged in the bombing and eventually demolished. Most of the public garden in the Place Lamartine is now a parking lot. The Rue du Bout d’Arles is now the Rue des Écoles; the building that once housed Rachel’s brothel lies in ruins. In downtown Arles, one can visit the Roman arena, church of Saint-Trophime, public garden on the Boulevard des Lices, and relax at a café on the same spot as the one Vincent painted in the Place du Forum. The Alyscamps is a protected historical site and accessible to visitors.

In Saint-Rémy, the asylum remains a working hospital, today home to about 100 female patients, who engage in art therapy under the auspices of the Fondation Valetudo. Part of the hospital is open to visitors, including the chapel and a reconstruction of Vincent’s room. The buildings that housed Vincent’s actual room and his studio are reserved for patients and their visitors; so, too, the garden where he drew and painted. Around the asylum one can see olive groves evocative of those in Vincent’s time; a relatively new addition is the Roman archaeological site of Glanum next door to the hospital, excavated beginning in the 1920s. Vincent was standing on an ancient town when he painted Mont Gaussier and didn’t know it.

In Paris, the Gare de Lyon remains the gateway to southeastern France. A street adjoining the station is now called the Avenue van Gogh in the painter’s honor. In Montmartre, the former Place Ravignan is now the Place Émile Goudeau. The Hôtel du Poirier that stood here in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century housed many artists and writers, among them Albert Camus and Amedeo Modigliani. The studios in the square referenced by (the fictional) Madame Fouillet, converted in 1890 by the building’s (real) owner, Monsieur François, were later nicknamed the Bateau Lavoir and are best known as the place where Pablo Picasso painted
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
in 1907. Vincent and Theo’s apartment at 54, Rue Lepic remains a private residence. Theo and Johanna’s apartment at 8, Cité Pigalle is likewise a private residence. My descriptions of the latter are based on letters between the couple during their engagement, as compiled in
Brief Happiness
(see Further Reading).

The inn in Auvers-sur-Oise where Vincent lived and died, known as the Auberge de la Mairie in his day, later became known as the Auberge Ravoux after the former innkeepers. Today, after an extensive restoration, the Auberge Ravoux (also known as the Maison de van Gogh) welcomes visitors to its restaurant once more. One can see the attic room where Vincent died, never occupied again because he was a suicide. Like Arles and Saint-Rémy, Auvers has plaques marking van Gogh sites for visitors: at the church, for example, and at the crossroads from
Crows over the Wheatfield
.

Vincent’s grave is in the town cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise; a law passed in 1881 decreed that all could be buried in the same cemetery regardless of religious belief or manner of death. Theo van Gogh—who died in January 1891 of complications from tertiary syphilis—lies next to his brother, his remains moved from Utrecht in 1914 at the request of Johanna van Gogh-Bonger. Johanna is buried in Amsterdam next to her second husband, Johan Cohen Gosschalk. Johanna deserves recognition for her significant contribution to the propagation of Vincent’s legacy, along with her son, Vincent Willem van Gogh, who, among other things, worked with the Dutch government to create the Van Gogh Museum.

The house of Dr. Paul Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise is recently restored and open to the public. Much of the Gachet collection, including some of the family’s van Gogh paintings, can be found in the Musée d’Orsay; Paul Gachet
fils
and his sister Marguerite sold other van Goghs in the first half of the twentieth century (including
Marguerite Gachet at Her Piano
to the Kunstmuseum Basel in 1934—see Distel and Stein 1999 in Further Reading). The core of the van Gogh family collection, including the majority of Vincent’s letters, a host of other archival materials, and paintings by Vincent and other artists of his and Theo’s acquaintance, forms the Van Gogh Museum collection in Amsterdam. Over the years, paintings and drawings by Vincent have scattered to museums, galleries, and private collections all over the world. Today they fetch prices that would shock and bewilder the artist who made them.

Further Reading
(Partial Bibliography of Works Consulted)

Bailey, Martin. “Drama at Arles: New Light on Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Mutilation.”
Apollo
162 (September 2005): 30–41.

Carrié-Ravoux, Adeline. “Les Souvenirs d’Adeline Ravoux sur le sujet de Vincent van Gogh à Auvers-sur-Oise.”
Les Cahiers de Van Gogh
(1956): 7–17.

Cooper, Douglas.
Paul Gauguin: 45 Lettres à Vincent, Théo, et Jo van Gogh
. La Bibliothèque des Arts, 1983.

Corbin, Alain.
Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France after 1850
. Translated by A. Sheridan. Harvard University Press, 1990.

Distel, Anne, and Susan Alyson Stein.
Cézanne to Van Gogh: The Collection of Doctor Gachet
. Exhibition catalogue. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999.

Dorn, Roland, et al.
Van Gogh Face to Face: The Portraits
. Exhibition catalogue. Thames and Hudson, 2000.

Druick, Douglas W., and Peter Kort Zegers.
Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South
. Exhibition catalogue. Thames and Hudson, 2001.

Gayford, Martin. “Gauguin and a Brothel in Arles.”
Apollo
163 (March 2006): 64–71.

——.
The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles
. Little, Brown & Co., 2006.

Gogh, Vincent van.
The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh
. Introduction by V. W. van Gogh. Preface and introduction by Johanna van Gogh-Bonger. 3rd ed. Bulfinch, 2000.

Harsin, Jill.
Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris
. Princeton University Press, 1985.

Homburg, Cornelia.
Vincent van Gogh and the Painters of the Petit Boulevard
. Exhibition catalogue. Saint Louis Art Museum, 2001.

Hulsker, Jan. “Critical days in the hospital at Arles: Unpublished letters from the postman Joseph Roulin and the Reverend Mr. Salles to Theo van Gogh.”
Vincent
1, no. 1 (1970–71): 20–31.

——.
Vincent and Theo van Gogh: A Dual Biography
. Fuller Publications, 1985.

——. “Vincent’s stay in the hospitals of Arles and St-Rémy: Unpublished letters from the Reverend Mr. Salles and Doctor Peyron to Theo van Gogh.”
Vincent
1, no. 2 (1970–71): 21–44.

——. “What Theo Really Thought of Vincent.”
Vincent
3, no. 2 (1974): 2–28.

Ives, Colta, et al.
Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings
. Exhibition catalogue. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005.

Jansen, Leo.
Van Gogh and His Letters
. Van Gogh Museum, 2007.

Jansen, Leo, Hans Luijten, and Nienke Bakker, eds.,
Vincent van Gogh—Painted with Words, The Letters to Émile Bernard
. Rizzoli, in association with the Van Gogh Museum, 2007.

Jansen, Leo, and Jan Robert, eds.
Brief Happiness: The Correspondence of Theo van Gogh and Johanna Bonger.
Van Gogh Museum, 1999.

Jirat-Wasiutynski, Vojtech. “A Dutchman in the South of France: Van Gogh’s Romance of Arles.”
Van Gogh Museum Journal
(2002): 78–89.

Leaf, Alexandra, and Fred Leeman.
Van Gogh’s Table at the Auberge Ravoux
. Artisan, 2001.

Lister, Kristin Hoermann. “Tracing a Transformation: Madame Roulin into
La Berceuse.” Van Gogh Museum Journal
(2001): 63–83.

Luijten, Hans.
Van Gogh and Love
. Van Gogh Museum, 2007.

Pickvance, Ronald.
Van Gogh in Arles
. Exhibition catalogue. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984.

——.
Van Gogh in Saint Rémy and Auvers
. Exhibition catalogue. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986.

——. ‘
A Great Artist is Dead’: Letters of Condolence on Vincent van Gogh’s Death
. Edited by S. van Heugten and F. Pabst. Van Gogh Museum, 1992.

Silverman, Debora.
Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for Sacred Art
. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2000.

Stolwijk, Chris, and Richard Thomson.
Theo van Gogh, 1857–1891
. Van Gogh Museum, 1999.

Sund, Judy. “The Sower and the Sheaf: Biblical Metaphor in the Art of Vincent van Gogh.”
Art Bulletin
70 (December 1988): 660–76.

——.
True to Temperament: Van Gogh and French Naturalist Literature
. Cambridge University Press, 1992.

———.
Van Gogh
. Phaidon, 2002.

Tilborgh, Louis van.
Van Gogh and the Sunflowers
. Van Gogh Museum, 2008.

Veen, Wouter van der. “En tant que quant à moi’: Vincent van Gogh and the French Language.”
Van Gogh Museum Journal
(2002): 64–77.

Vellekoop, Marije, and Roelie Zwikker.
Vincent van Gogh Drawings, vol. 4: Arles, Saint-Rémy, and Auvers-sur-Oise, 1889–1890
. Van Gogh Museum, 2007.

Walther, Ingo F., and Rainer Metzger.
Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings
. Taschen, 2006.

Welsh-Ovcharov, Bogomila.
Van Gogh à Paris
. Exhibition catalogue. Musée d’Orsay, 1988.

——. “The Ownership of Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers.’”
Burlington Magazine
140, no. 1140 (March 1998): 184–92.

Whitney, Charles. “The Skies of Vincent van Gogh.”
Art History
9 (1986): 351–62.

Wolk, Johannes van der.
The Seven Sketchbooks of Vincent van Gogh
. Thames and Hudson, 1987.

Zemel, Carol.
Van Gogh’s Progress: Utopia, Modernity, and Late Nineteenth-Century Art
. University of California Press, 1997.

About the Author

SHERAMY BUNDRICK
is an art historian and professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
Sunflowers
is her first novel.

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By Sheramy Bundrick

SUNFLOWERS

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SUNFLOWERS. Copyright © 2009 by Sheramy Bundrick. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Digital Edition September 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-194347-8

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