Self Portrait, (Van Gogh)
It could be a mystery novel. Van Gogh confined in the sanatorium of Saint-Remy , gives a notebook to the owners of the Café de la Gare in Arles. The trace of him vanishes until an Allied bombardment makes the drawings reappear, but the author, in the absence of a signature, remains hidden. Finally, a researcher at the University of Toronto trace the tracks that lead to a small town in France and she reveals her nature to the owner of the notebook, who keeps it as a family keepsake.
But the story does not end there, because any recovery of a lost work by a great creator inevitably generates a lively controversy. In favor of its authenticity: Ronald Pickvance and Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, experts in the artist's work . The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam , on the contrary, has expressed doubts.
The Yellow House (Van Gogh)
Vincent van Gogh spent two years in Arles . He arrived there in February 1888 and until his departure he maintained a close relationship with the Ginoux couple. They ran the Café de la Gare , where he stayed upon his arrival. Provence, and what this region revealed to him about the south, in its broader and more vital concept, had a great impact on him. He painted endlessly. His production grew.
Gaugui's ill-fated visit n and the unsuccessful project of forming an artists' residence in the Yellow house , where he settled, accentuated an imbalance that led to the famous episode of the severed ear and his internment in the Saint-Rémy sanatorium.
The existence of a first sketchbook is known. Van Gogh used the calamus, a cut cane that he dipped in ink . When he finished this first notebook, the Ginoux offered him one of the account books they used in the café . He filled it out with notes.
Still life of onions (Van Gogh)
Landscapes with haystacks, fishing boats in Sainte-Marie-de-la-Mer , convulsive skies, a self-portrait and portraits of friends, sketches of the Yellow House, crooked trees, curly cypresses, intertwined olive trees, the radiant sun, a still life with onions, lilies, sunflowers, and images of the Saint-Rémy sanatorium. The artist's repertoire, condensed into 65 images.
Thanks to a record made by the manager of the café, we know that the notebook was sent to the couple by Van Gogh from the sanatorium . He handed it over Dr Felix Rey next to some empty cans of olives that Marie had sent him. In a few weeks the painter would travel to Auvers-sur-Oise , north of Paris, where he committed suicide three months later.
The notebook was a gift whose content illustrated the bond between the artist and the Ginoux . A diary in images of the city, its surroundings, of characters passing through the cafe . A token of gratitude, of affection.
haystacks
Van Gogh it was not for the marriage just a tenant. They welcomed him in his pension, next to the railway station. Joseph often stretched the limits of a credit flowing from Theo, the painter's brother . Marie towered over her like a protective, motherly presence. She defended the Dutchman's outbursts of fury and praised her creative genius. He painted six versions of the portrait of Marie: L'Arlesienne . In night coffee she represents her leaning on the bar. Serena, she ignores a drunk man who has fallen asleep on the table.
When Van Gogh left, his furniture remained stored in the cafe until were sent to Auvers-sur-Oise . We know that five years after his death all trace of the notebook had been lost. When the dealer Ambroise Vollard asked Joseph for drawings by the artist, he replied that he had none left..
The Olive Grove (Van Gogh)
It is likely that the accounting book title was carried along with others on a shelf, and that it was moved with them to the house that Marie occupied when she closed the cafe. She moved in with her niece, whose family kept ownership of the buildings on Place Lamartine. In what had been the Yellow House, the Café Civette was installed, which was destroyed during a bombing in World War II.
A relative of the cafe's owners found the Ginoux's notebook in a room that had stood under the bombs, along with other archival materials. She did not recognize its author and kept it as a souvenir. She considered it a valuable object, and therefore she gave it to her daughter when she turned twenty..
The Welsh-Ovcharov researcher came to her on the trail of rumors of a missing Van Gogh notebook. She reconstructed this story from the record of the Ginoux cafe, which contained its delivery by Dr. Félix Rey along with some empty cans of olives. The fate of the drawings it contains remains pending a consensus.
Bridge, Arles Notebook