Vincent van Gogh arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise in May 1890, and he was dead by the end of July. In those ten weeks, he painted about seventy canvases, among them the dark, restless wheat fields, the crooked village church and the portrait of his doctor, Paul Gachet. He died on 29 July 1890 of a gunshot wound, and he is buried in the small cemetery on the hill, next to his brother Theo, with a bed of ivy over both graves. The room he rented above the Ravoux inn, number five, is preserved almost empty, which makes it more affecting than any display.
The village on the Oise had drawn painters long before him. Charles-François Daubigny settled here in the 1860s and painted from a floating studio on the river, and Pissarro, Cézanne and Berthe Morisot all worked in the area. The light is soft and silvery, with the river and the open sky, and the village still feels like a country town with old stone houses and quiet lanes. Paths lead up to the wheat fields on the plateau, where a stone marks the place thought to have inspired his last paintings, and the view over the valley rewards the short climb.
For a rider, Auvers is easy to reach and pleasant to leave. The roads along the Oise and across the Vexin plateau are smooth and quiet, with gentle bends, old stone walls and villages with church spires. Weekends see cyclists and visitors, so slow down in the village, where the streets are narrow and parking is tight. Fuel is available in Méry-sur-Oise next door, which has about nine and a half thousand people, as well as stations on the main road, and the village has a few cafés and a bakery.
Visit early or late, since the main sights, such as the Ravoux inn and the church, are most crowded at midday, and check opening times, as some sites close for lunch and on certain days. In autumn, the fields are ploughed brown, the sky turns heavy and grey, and the wheat of the paintings feels very far away. Even so, it is easy to understand why a painter felt something here.