Hello there! And welcome to Dandelion Seeds, an illustrated newsletter in search of the magic in everyday moments.
Somewhere in the course of my “summer of Vincent,” I came across the last painting that Van Gogh ever created, before his death at just 37 years old.
And perhaps it’s no surprise given Vincent’s love for trees — “in all of nature,” he once wrote in a letter to his brother Theo, “in trees for instance, I see expression and a soul” — but the subject of his last painting was a hillside in northern France, covered with trees and their tangle of roots.
I’ve included Vincent’s last painting at the end of today’s letter, which is also the final letter of his that I’d like to share with you this summer.
This week, we meet one of Vincent’s earliest mentors, Anton Mauve, who helped Vincent make the transition from drawing to painting. After so much uncertainty, and so many questions of whether Vincent would be a preacher or a teacher or an art dealer, I love the feeling of settledness that permeates this letter — or rather, thinking ahead to his final painting, the feeling of rootedness.
The pastor has become a painter, and no matter the challenges that still lay ahead, this was the path he would walk.
I only wish he could have kept walking it for so much longer than he did.
With love,
Candace
For our final letter from Vincent this summer, it only felt right to feature his beloved yellow as the background.
The first drawing I included this week, “Gardener by an Apple Tree,” is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The following three paintings can all be found in the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands, including “Pink Peach Trees,” which Vincent dedicated to Anton Mauve when he learned of his mentor’s death and later gave to Mauve’s wife. Finally, “Tree Roots” is held by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
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