Vincent van Gogh – A Wheatfield, with Cypresses Part 6 National Gallery UK

Description of Vincent van Gogh’s painting Wheat Field with Cypresses

Van Gogh created Wheat Field with Cypresses in the late 19th century while he was in a hospital for the mentally ill for almost a year. Van Gogh, tired of "soothing art," began to paint landscapes: trees, fields sowing wheat. He was very attracted to cypresses that lifted their crowns to the sky, they looked like tongues of developing fire. In almost every painting he began to depict the southern nature - cypresses.

Researchers of his creativity explained this passion by the fact that in the Mediterranean these trees from ancient times were the sign of mourning. His works from 1888 to 1889 are endowed with special symbolic images, which are associated with a peculiar worldview of the artist in this period.

At the bottom of the picture immediately catches your eye a bread field painted in light yellow and orange tones. The wheat seems to be bowed by a small gust of wind. Van Gogh was very fond of the cypresses for their lines and proportions, of which he said they were beautiful.

The green grass looks bright, it is like a spot on a landscape that is flooded by the sun, but this black spot was a very interesting and challenging task for this creator. As he said, to paint nature here, you have to look at it for a very long time. The wheat field shows blackberries, bushes, tall cypresses with thick crowns, they are on the right edge of the work and look longer and darker against the sky. And behind them in the distance you can see hills of purple tones.

Above is a pink-green sky with clouds in unusual colors, and a barely visible crescent moon. Dense strokes are made in the front, with glimpses of green, purple and yellow tones visible on the blackberry bushes. The cypresses are the only accent in the painting, painted vertically.