Harvest Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Description of Vincent Willem van Gogh’s The Harvest

The Harvest Landscape was painted by Vincent van Gogh in June 1888 on a hill overlooking the fields around the Abbey of Montmajour. On plein air that summer in the south of France in Provence, the artist painted a whole series of landscapes about the harvesting process. On all of the canvases Van Gogh depicted working peasants, as if to praise them for such hard work. Included in this series was The Harvest, also known as The Harvest and The Harvest at La Croix, with Montmajour in the background.

In a letter to his brother Theodore Van Gogh confessed that it was much more difficult for him to paint summer than spring. But with the task before him, he coped and was very pleased with the result.

In "The Harvest" painting, the artist depicted a hot summer day, delightfully yellow colors of the vast fields conveying all the brightness and warmth of the sun’s rays. The canvas looks like it’s shining, like it’s radiating sunlight itself.

Rich blue color of the horizon, as if it’s buried in the heavenly azure, shading the wide space.

The bright yellow fields that extend into the distance are diluted with shades of lighter green, allowing the distinction between the individual fields to be recognized. Juicy strips of trees, buildings, and roads create horizontals and verticals on the canvas, which gives the painting a visual volume. It is as if the landscape comes to life and inserts itself into the viewer’s gaze, fully conveying the atmosphere of a sultry day.

Despite such a miniature size of the figures of peasants, the artist managed to describe in detail their work.

For Van Gogh, it was very important to capture the process of the harvest on the canvas. He succeeded in depicting the main stages of the process.

He was very happy with his painting and gave it his own title: The Harvest.

Today, Van Gogh’s The Harvest is in the Van Gogh Art Museum in Amsterdam.