Literally penetrate a van gogh canvas. It is the incredible challenge, who started from a joke, imposed on a painter-sculptor Auvergne owners of an Airbnb. In the fall of 2024, he undertook to transform the studio bedroom which he hired in Charroux, in the Allier in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, in Van Gogh Chamber in Arles, an iconic work of the impressionist painter produced in 1888.
“One day, I launched this idea of reproducing the famous Van Gogh room, a bit like a delirium,” said François Lassere in the mountains. With his daughter Elsa McCallister, he takes the project ultimately very seriously and reproduced everything on the scale of the original painting. For months, the host goes in search, around France, of each piece of furniture identically.
Then he paints everything, from the walls to the parquet, including the furniture, like the Dutch painter, imitating his touch of brush so personal. Each detail is meticulously studied to offer total immersion. “The idea is that people really have the impression of getting into a canvas,” said François Lassere on a regional daily. Successful bet, judge for yourself:
- The accommodation was officially inaugurated at the end of March and it is indeed believed in the room of the “painter with a cut ear”: it was also in this famous yellow house in Arles that he occupied in the very late 1880s that the painter, during a dementia crisis after a dispute with Gauguin, cut his ear. “People, unlike Van Gogh, will be able to sleep on their two ears,” jokes the artist.
And then go to Charroux, classified among the “most beautiful villages in France” is widely worth the detour. This charming medieval village is renowned for its local craft (candles, pottery, mother -of -pearl), its mustard, and is ideal for engaging in strolling in its cobbled alleys lined with half -timbered houses …
François Lassere immersed himself a lot from the artist before the execution of the room in full size, notably reading his correspondences exchanged with his brother Théo, where it is a question of the “room”. The rest of the apartment continues to bring the soul of Van Gogh to life, through a decoration which recalls in small touches the immense painter, like this tank of sunflowers identical to that of the painting of the iconic vase of the 12 sunflowers, or by unprecedented documentation on the life of the artist.
The world famous Van Gogh room in Arles continues to inspire around the world. Other artistic initiatives on the same theme exist, like an Airbnb located in Arles, the Red Aubergine, or the Riche Boxmeer hotel in the Netherlands, which both reconstructed the painter’s chamber identically.
