Recent studies have revealed the precise location and time in which Vincent van Gogh he painted his famous “Avenue of poplars at sunset” in 1884, a work created during his stay in the Dutch city of Nuenen.
Credit for the discovery goes to astronomer Donald Olson of Texas State University, who applied a detailed analysis of the sky of those dayscomparing the astronomical data with the descriptions that van Gogh had written in some letters to his brother Theo.
This work was based on the examination of position of the Sun and gods climatic details of the periodan approach that Olson has already successfully used to date other van Gogh works such as “Landscape with Sheaves and the Rising Moon” and “Night Path in Provence.”
Olson analyzed three letters and used astronomical software
To pinpoint the exact place and time of the painting, Olson analyzed three letters by van Gogh, dated between the end of October and the beginning of November 1884. In these, the artist described the autumn atmosphere and mentioned the change in the landscape with the arrival of autumn.
In a letter dated October 22, for example, Vincent predicted that the trees along the avenue would lose all their leaves by November 5; another letter dated November 14, however, reports that he was intensely cold forced to suspend outdoor worksuggesting that the painting had been completed shortly before.
To confirm the precise date, Olson used a astronomical software able to reconstruct the sky of those days, focusing on the position of the sunset, which van Gogh often painted with great attention.
Analyzing maps of the period, Olson identified three straight roads oriented in the direction of the sunset south-westthe orientation in which the Sun was at nightfall between November 5 and 14 of that year. The street that best suited the scene depicted in the painting turned out to be Weverstraata 365 meter long avenue, which extended towards the point where the Sun set.
Thanks to weather data from the time, Olson discovered that on November 13 and 14 the sky was clear in Nuenena condition that corresponds to van Gogh’s habit of painting from life rather than from memory. All this information therefore leads to the conclusion that “Avenue of poplars at sunset” was painted between 13 and 14 November 1884.
