Although the parsonage garden soon attracted Vincent's attention, it was the description of the Old Tower and its cemetery that made him curious about Nuenen before his arrival. What you tell me about their new surroundings interests me greatly. Most certainly I would like to try to make such an old church & cemetery with sand graves and old wooden crosses,' he writes to Theo in August 1882. The idea still haunts him in October: "The cemetery with the wooden crosses plays on my mind so much that I might make some studies for it in advance - I would like something like that in the snow - a farmer's funeral or something like that.
The cemetery with the crosses by the tower in the snow is indeed one of the first motifs he draws in Nuenen. The subject appears in his oeuvre throughout his stay in Nuenen; Vincent records the place over thirty times. Sometimes the tower plays the leading role, sometimes it appears in the background. He can see the tower from the parsonage garden and finds the structure in the middle of the fields, outside the built-up area of Nuenen. A small church probably stood at that spot around the year 1225. The church was expanded or possibly completely rebuilt at the end of the fifteenth century, and after a disaster a few decades later, the tower received a short spire.
In the eighteenth century the structure fell into disrepair, but the tower was restored to a lower one in 1803. One clears the church section in 1823, using the material for the new St. Clemens Church in Nuenen. The tower is retained and so stands alone in the fields. Although the tower has been nominated for demolition since 1873, it would take until 1884 before the bells were transferred to St. Clemens Church and demolition was discussed. In May 1885, the spire was torn down, the sale took place in parts, and it was not until 1886 that the tower was razed to the ground. Vincent follows the progress closely: 'The old tower in the fields is torn down.- There was now a sale of woodwork and slates and old iron, including the cross.' The sale of demolition materials forms an interesting motif for him.
In the painting The old church tower in Nuenen, which he himself calls 'Cimetière de paysans', he sees the half-destroyed tower as a symbol of the transience of faith. While, in contrast, 'for centuries the peasants have been laid to rest in the very fields which they root through with their lives' and thus their lives are unchanging in his eyes. In the cemetery near the tower, Catholics are buried in the northern part and Protestants in the southern part. The morgue next to the tower is recognizable in many of Vincent's works.
The place took on more significance when on March 26, 1885, his father died and was buried four days later - on Vincent's 32nd birthday - in the cemetery still in use at the time. The grave is still there. The foundation of the old tower is preserved and today marked with stone baskets.
