AFTER being hidden in plain view for years, the exact location in France where Dutch master Vincent van Gogh painted his last work of art has been pinpointed. Experts say the discovery of the site, among a tangle of roots next to a rural lane near Paris, sheds new light on the anguished painter’s mental state on the day he is widely believed to have fatally shot himself.

A Dutch researcher realized that the scene depicted in the troubled artist’s final work, “Tree Roots,” was visible on a faded picture postcard featuring a man standing next to a bicycle on a back street of the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, 33 kilometers north of Paris. Van Gogh spent the last weeks of his life in the village and completed dozens of paintings there. Helpfully, the card even included the name of the street.

Wouter van der Veen, scientific director of the Van Gogh Institute in France, made the discovery. It’s now clear that Van Gogh worked on the painting until the end of the afternoon, according to historians.

“There has been a lot of speculation about his state of mind, but one thing that is very clear is that he spent quite a bit longer working on this painting right through the afternoon. We know that from the light fall in the work,” said Emilie Gordenker, director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. “He really was at work right up to the end.” The uncompleted painting hangs in the Amsterdam museum. Its composition and execution — a tight focus on gnarled roots on a hillside — have led to it being seen as a “harbinger of abstraction.” Van Gogh never got to further develop the painting style.

After working on “Tree Roots” the artist walked into a nearby field of wheat later in the day and shot himself in the chest with a pistol. He died two days later, on July 29, 1890, aged 37. Two American authors cast doubt on the theory in 2011, suggesting the artist was shot by two teenage boys. Van der Veen believes the museum’s version of events and agrees his new discovery shows that Van Gogh had his wits about him and was methodical in his thinking before he pulled the trigger to kill himself.

(SD-Agencies)