Thatched Cottages
An old northern motif, seen in a new place.
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F750 Thatched Cottages 1890 -
F88 The Old Tower at Nuenen 1884 -
F792 Thatched Cottages at Cordeville 1890
Painting
These are two distinct oil paintings of thatched cottages. In F750 the roofs stretch along a hillside, with broad grassland and a deep blue sky. In F792 a stone wall and stony path lead toward the cottages beneath a whirling blue sky. Both depict thatched roofs in Auvers, but they organize the scene and its colours differently.
Letter
June 1890, just after arriving in Auvers. He wrote to Theo: "Auvers is very beautiful — among other things a lot of old thatched roofs, which are becoming rare." In another letter: "Mossy thatched roofs that remind me of thrushes' and blackbirds' nests." He was using the words of his childhood to describe the houses in front of him. This was the last time he could write down the word beautiful.
Place
Auvers-sur-Oise, a village 30 km northwest of Paris. Doctor Gachet lived there. A slow tributary of the Seine ran through fields, orchards and old houses. Eight years from Nuenen. Two from Arles. Less than two months from the 27th of July.
Around 21 May, he told Theo that he had made a study of old thatched roofs, with flowering peas and wheat in front. Thatched cottages had also been one of the subjects of his early Dutch work.
The comparison is his own: after going south, he wrote, he could see the north better. Yet in the same letter he found Auvers's modern villas almost as beautiful as its old thatched cottages. This is not a simple statement of nostalgia.
At Auvers he again painted old roofs, cottages, churches, and fields. The archive supports the return of these subjects; the sense of a dialogue with the past is a reading, not a statement he left behind.
Events
- Synaesthetic Precision · Letter 877
Just after his arrival: 'Auvers is very beautiful — among other things a lot of old thatched roofs, which are becoming rare.' The objects of his childhood reappearing in front of him
- Synaesthetic Precision · Letter 877
'Mossy thatched roofs that remind me of thrushes' and blackbirds' nests.' He did not say 'warm' or 'homesick' — he reached straight for a bird's nest as the comparison
- The Colour Experimenter
In F750, green thatched roofs merge with the slope beneath a deep blue sky.
- Synaesthetic Precision
In F792, a stone wall and path lead toward the cottages at Cordeville; the sky and roofs are drawn into whirling lines.
From the Letters
Auvers est bien beau — beaucoup de vieux chaumes entre autres, ce qui devient rare. Auvers is very beautiful — among other things a lot of old thatched roofs, which are becoming rare.
Des toits de chaume moussus qui me rappellent les nids de grives et de merles. Mossy thatched roofs that remind me of thrushes' and blackbirds' nests.
Letter Sources
Van Gogh letter records referenced on this page, linked to the Van Gogh Letters Project. vangoghletters.org