Landscape at Auvers in the Rain is an oil painting on canvas by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.
Painted in July 1890, and completed just three days before his death, it depicts a landscape at Auvers-sur-Oise, where van Gogh spent the last years of his life. It is one of thirteen double-square canvases of landscapes around Auvers completed by van Gogh between 17 June and 27 July. The depiction of the rain with dark, diagonal lines is considered to be inspired by Japanese art, specifically the woodcuts of Hiroshige. It also displays the visceral relationship between nature and emotion that is a trademark of van Gogh's later work, as well as the stylistic innovations of a raised horizon line, expressive brushstrokes, and bold colours. This was one of Van Gogh's last paintings before his death and has been interpreted as symbolizing the cycle of human suffering contrasted with a sense of hope. The painting was bought by Gwendoline Davies in 1920 in Paris, and was donated to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff as part of her bequest in 1952.
Background
Vincent van Gogh became an artist at the age of 27, and continued painting until his alleged suicide on 29 July 1890 at the age of 37. Originally based in his home country of the Netherlands, van Gogh spent the last four years of life painting in France, where his greatest artistic innovation occurred. As his mental health declined, allegedly due to an epileptic disorder, van Gogh chose to enter a private asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence in the South of France. He spent fifteen months there, continuing to develop a distinct artistic style. Then, he moved to the small village of Auvers-sur-Oise in northern France, where he spent the last three months of his life.
Van Gogh lived in Auvers from May to 27 July 1890. In those seventy days, the artist painted over seventy works, enjoying his newfound autonomy after being institutionalised by producing art fanatically. His main correspondences were with his brother Theo van Gogh, to whom he wrote in Paris, and Doctor Paul Gachet, a local homoeopathic practitioner who was interested in Post-Impressionist art and who kept an eye on the artist. Despite his renewed freedom, van Gogh's mental health continued to deteriorate, leading to his suicide. In the last two months of his life, the artist engaged in his "most daring stylistic experiments and freed himself from any remaining academic constraints, which had still hampered his work in the previous months". Notably, he painted twelve double-square canvases of the gardens and fields around Auvers in the last ten days of his life, which displayed some of his most innovative techniques in terms of colour and composition. Landscape at Auvers in the Rain was part of this collection of works, which were probably meant to be a coherent series, and was painted within the last three days before his suicide.
Development
Setting
Twenty miles northwest of Paris, Auvers was a popular artist colony "discovered" by the Barbizon painter Charles-François Daubigny, who lived there in the 1870s. The village attracted those engaged in the Impressionist movement due to its tranquility and the contrast between its natural environment and the nearby capital city. An influential art colony for 30 years, Auvers provided rich landscapes as well as a sharp contrast between the old, quaint cottages and new industrial features, such as the railway. In Auvers, van Gogh painted portraits, villages, and fields, focusing more on the natural beauty and provincial village life than the new mechanical innovations. Van Gogh largely edited out any signs of industrialisation because he was "more interested in finding a new way of painting traditional motifs – whether through achieving a particular effect of light, or through the expressive use of colour – than recording the encroachment of modern life". Therefore, in Landscape at Auvers in the Rain, van Gogh chose to focus on the old-world charm of the village, from the shaped thatched roofs of the houses to the old cottages, and the natural beauty of Auvers, from the bustling meadows to the dark trees.