For his mother
Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen
There is a unique family story behind this painting of the Reformed Church in Nuenen. Van Gogh was temporarily living with his parents again in their village in Noord-Brabant (NL).
He made this small painting for his mother in early 1884. She was confined to bed with a broken leg, and he wanted to cheer her up. He chose his subject carefully: his father was the minister of this church.
The early 19th-century church in Nuenen today.
Fortunately ma’s mood is very equable and content, considering her difficult situation. And she amuses herself with trifles. I recently painted the little church with the hedge and the trees for her.
Letter to Theo van Gogh, Nuenen, c. 3 February 1884.
Significant detail
Van Gogh gave the picture even greater emotional meaning by changing it after the death of his father. He painted autumn leaves on the bare winter trees and also added little groups of churchgoers. Some of them are in mourning, a significant detail.
The churchgoers dressed in black mourning clothes that Van Gogh added to the painting about eighteen months later are probably a reference to the death of his father. He had died of a stroke half a year before, in spring 1885.
Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen is the only painting that Van Gogh made of this early 19th-century church. He preferred to paint the old Medieval church tower in Nuenen, as a symbol of the old rural community.
Vincent van Gogh, The Old Church Tower at Nuenen, 1885
