''Old Church Tower at Nuenen'' (or ''The Peasants' Churchyard'') are names given to several oil paintings and drawings created in 1884 and 1885 by

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...

. Most reflect the way the 12th-century church looked in its better days when its spire was intact and its foundation formidable. The spire was demolished in 1792 and the church tower was in the process of being torn down and sold for scrap as Van Gogh made the paintings.

Background

In 1882, Van Gogh's father became pastor in

Nuenen Nuenen () is a town in the municipality of Nuenen, Gerwen en Nederwetten in the Netherlands. From 1883 to 1885, Vincent van Gogh lived and worked in Nuenen. In 1944, the town was a battle scene during Operation Market Garden. The local dialect is ...

and the family lived at the vicarage at Nuenen, a small village in the

North Brabant North Brabant ( nl, Noord-Brabant ; Brabantian: ; ), also unofficially called Brabant, is a province in the south of the Netherlands. It borders the provinces of South Holland and Gelderland to the north, Limburg to the east, Zeeland to the we ...

district of the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. After a stay in

Drenthe Drenthe () is a province of the Netherlands located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and the German state of Lower Saxony to the east. As of Nov ...

for several months, Van Gogh moved to live with his parents in December 1883 and stayed there until May 1885. While in Nuenen Van Gogh worked on character studies of the local peasants. It was winter and there was little to be done in the fields, so Van Gogh was able to make connections to people through his father, a town minister. Van Gogh's character studies culminated in his best known painting ''

The Potato Eaters ''The Potato Eaters'' ( nl, De Aardappeleters) is an oil painting by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh painted in April 1885 in Nuenen, Netherlands. It is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The original oil sketch of the painting is at the Kröller ...

''. Potatoes were a staple of the poor peasant’s diet, who could barely afford bread and meat was a luxury. Potato was a food not fit for those who could afford better in the 19th century.

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...

, a Scottish philosopher, deemed the poor "root-eaters". While in Nuenen, Van Gogh made a number of paintings of ''The Old Church Tower at Nuenen'', born of his enjoyment of visiting churches and cemeteries. Vincent was the second child to his parents, born exactly one year after their first baby, still born, also named Vincent. Like other "substitute" children, he regularly visited the site of his sibling's grave. Vincent's brother was buried in Zundert Groot, but his death may have been an influencing factor in his interest in churches and graveyards. He also may have been inspired by Jean-François Millet's ''The Church at Greville.''

History

The Old Church Tower is the final remains of a 12th-century Romanesque church built during Christianity's spread across the countryside. It is surrounded by an old burial ground whose graves were marked with simple wooden crosses. The spire was demolished before Van Gogh's early watercolors of the tower could be developed into oil paintings. At the time, the building itself was crumbling. The final version of the oil paintings were finished just before the building was demolished and the remains sold for scrap.

The paintings

Van Gogh made eleven drawings and paintings of the Church tower; one of the drawings is of a funeral. ''Old Church Tower at Nuenen, ('The Peasants' Churchyard')'' (F84) was made as a tribute to the simple, humble lives of the peasants who "for centuries... have been laid to rest, among the fields in which they rooted when alive." The ruined tower he saw a symbol of the declining role of Christianity in people's lives. The tower was demolished shortly after Van Gogh concluded this painting. Van Gogh wrote of this painting:

"I wanted to express how perfectly simple death & burial is, as simple as the falling of autumn leaves -- just some earth dug up -- a little wooden cross. The fields around -- they make a final line against the horizon, where the grass of the churchyard ends -- like a horizon of sea. An now this ruin tells me how a creed and religion have moldered away, even though they were so well established -- how, nevertheless, the life & death of the peasants is and remains the same: always sprouting and withering like the grass and the flowers that are growing in this graveyard."

File:Van Gogh - Der alte Friedhofsturm in Nuenen mit drei Figuren.jpeg, ''The Old Tower of Nuenen with People Walking'', 1884, Private collection (F184) File:Van Gogh -Der alte Friedhofsturm in Nuenen mit plügenden Bauern.jpeg, ''The Old Tower at Nuenen with a Ploughman'', 1884,

Kröller-Müller Museum The Kröller-Müller Museum () is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of her ...

, Otterlo, Netherlands (F34) File:Vincent van Gogh - The Old Tower at Dusk - F40 JH507.jpg, ''The Old Tower at Dusk'', 1884, private collection, (F40) File:Van Gogh - Der alte Friedhofsturm in Nuenen im Schnee.jpeg, ''The Old Cemetery Tower at Nuenen in the Snow'', 1885,

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

(F87) File:VanGogh F84.jpg, ''Old Church Tower at Nuenen, ('The Peasants' Churchyard')'', 1885,

Van Gogh Museum The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened on ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

(F84)

Other paintings of churches

File:Van Gogh - Die neue Kirche und alte Häuser in Den Haag.jpeg, ''Cluster of Old Houses with the New Church in The Hague'', 1882, Private collection (F204) File:View of The Hague with the New Church.jpg, ''View of The Hague with the New Church'', Watercolor, 1882, Collection of Kunsthandel Ivo Bouwman, The Hague (F1680) File:Kerk van Zweeloo.jpg, ''Shepherd with Flock near a Little Church at Zweeloo'', Drawing, Pen and pencil, 1883, Private collection (F877) File:Van Gogh - Landschaft in der Dämmerung.jpeg, ''Landscape with a Church at Twilight'', 1883, Private collection (F188) File:Landscape with a church - Vincent van Gogh - dec 1883 - F1238 JH435.jpg, ''Landscape with a Church'', Drawing with pencil and pen, 1883,

, Amsterdam (F1238) File:Van Gogh - Die Kirche von Nuenen mit Kirchgängern.jpeg, ''

Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen ''Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen'' (Dutch: ''Het uitgaan van de hervormde kerk te Nuenen'') is an early painting by Vincent van Gogh, made in early 1884 and modified in late 1885. It is displayed at the Van Gogh Museum in Ams ...

'', 1884,

, Amsterdam (F25) File:Martinuskerk Tongelre Vincent van Gogh JH640 feb 1885.jpg, ''St. Martin's Church at Tongelre'', Drawing in pencil and chalk, 1885,

, Amsterdam (F: None, JH: 640) File:Van Gogh - Blick auf die Kirche von Saint-Paul-de-Mausole.jpeg, ''View of the church of

Saint-Paul-de-Mausole Monastery of Saint-Paul de Mausole (french: monastère Saint-Paul-de-Mausole) is a former monastery in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, France. Several rooms of the building have been converted into a museum to Vincent van Gogh, who stayed the ...

'', 1889, Private collection (F803) File:Vincent van Gogh - The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise, View from the Chevet - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Church at Auvers'', 1890,

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...

, Paris (F789) File:Van Gogh - Blick auf Auvers mit Kirche.jpeg, ''View of Auvers with Church'', 1890, Private collection (F800)

References

External links