At Eternity's Gate

Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate) is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he made in 1890 in Saint-Rémy de Provence based on an early lithograph. The painting was completed in early May at a time when he was convalescing from a severe relapse in his health some two months before his death, which is generally accepted as a suicide.

In the 1970 catalogue raisonné, it was given the title Worn Out: At Eternity's Gate.

Commentary Writing about At Eternity's Gate in 1998, the American theologian Kathleen Powers Erickson remarked: Belief in a "life beyond the grave" is central to one of van Gogh's first accomplished lithographs, At Eternity's Gate... Executed at The Hague in 1882, it depicts an old man seated by a fire, his head buried in his hands. Near the end of his life Van Gogh recreated this image in oil, while recuperating in the asylum at St. Rémy. Bent over with his fists clenched against a face hidden in utter frustration, the subject appears engulfed in grief. Certainly, the work would convey an image of total despair had it not been for the English title Van Gogh gave it, At Eternity's Gate. It demonstrates that even in his deepest moments of sorrow and pain, Van Gogh clung to a faith in God and eternity, which he tried to express in his work....