Wheat Fields (Van Gogh series)
Encyclopedia
Vincent van Gogh
painted dozens of Wheat Fields (series of paintings), borne out of his religious studies and sermons, connection to nature, appreciation of manual laborers and desire to provide a means of offering comfort to others. The wheat field works demonstrate his progression as an artist from the drab Wheat Sheaves made in 1885 in the Netherlands
to the colorful, dramatic paintings from Arles
, Saint-Rémy
and Auvers-sur-Oise
of rural France
.
Van Gogh came to view painting as a calling, "I feel a certain indebtedness [to the world] and... out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures -- not made to please a certain taste in art, but to express a sincere feeling." When Van Gogh left Paris
for Arles
, he sought an anecdote to the ills of city life and work among laborers in the field "giving his art and life the value he recognized in rural toil."
In the series of paintings about wheat fields, Van Gogh expresses through symbolism and use of color his deeply felt spiritual beliefs, appreciation of manual laborers and connection to nature.
, England
to teach Bible
classes and occasionally preach in the Methodist church.
When he returned to the Netherlands
he studied for the ministry
and also for lay ministry
or missionary
work without finishing either field of study. With support from his father, Van Gogh went to Borinage
in southern Belgium
where he nursed and ministered to coal miners. There he obtained a six-month trial position for a small salary where he preached in an old dance hall and established and taught Bible school. His self-imposed zeal and asceticism
cost him the position.
After a nine-month period of withdrawal from society and family; he rejected the church establishment, yet found his personal vision of spirituality
, "The best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife, something - whatever you like - (and) you will be on the way to knowing more about Him; this is what I say to myself. But one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence." By 1879, he made a shift in the direction of his life and found he could express his "love of God and man" through painting.
Drawn to Biblical parables, Van Gogh found wheat fields metaphors for humanity's cycles of life, as both celebration of growth and realization of the susceptibility of nature's powerful forces.
, Jules Breton, and others. In 1885 Van Gogh described the painting of peasants as the most essential contribution to modern art. He described the works of Millet and Breton of religious significance, "something on high," and described them as the "voices of the wheat."
Throughout Van Gogh's adulthood he had an interest in serving others, especially manual workers. As a young man he served and ministered to coal miners in Borinage
, Belgium
which seemed to bring him close to his calling of being a missionary or minister to workers.
A common denominator in his favored authors and artists was sentimental treatment of the destitute and downtrodden. Referring to painting of peasants Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo
: "How shall I ever manage to paint what I love so much?" He held laborers up to a high standard of how dedicatedly he should approach painting, "One must undertake with confidence, with a certain assurance that one is doing a reasonable thing, like the farmer who drives his plow... (one who) drags the harrow
behind himself. If one hasn't a horse, one is one's own horse."
The close association of peasants and the cycles of nature particularly interested Van Gogh, such as the sowing of seeds, harvest and sheaves of wheat in the fields. Van Gogh saw plowing, sowing and harvesting symbolic to man's efforts to overwhelm the cycles of nature: "the sower and the wheat sheaf stood for eternity, and the reaper and his scythe
for irrevocable death." The dark hours conducive to germination and regeneration are depicted in The Sower and wheat fields at sunset.
In 1889 Van Gogh wrote of the way in which wheat was symbolic to him: "What can a person do when he thinks of all the things he cannot understand, but look at the fields of wheat... We, who live by bread, are we not ourselves very much like wheat... to be reaped when we are ripe."
Van Gogh saw in his paintings of wheat fields an opportunity for people to find a sense of calm and meaning, offering more to suffering people than guessing at what they may learn "on the other side of life."
Van Gogh writes Theo that he hopes that his family brings to him "what nature, clods of earth, the grass, yellow wheat, the peasant, are for me, in other words, that you find in your love for people something not only to work for, but to comfort and restore you when there is a need." Further exploring the connection between man and nature, Van Gogh wrote his sister Wil, "What the germinating
force is in a grain of wheat, love is in us."
At times Van Gogh was so enamored with nature that his sense of self seemed lost in the intensity of his work: "I have a terrible lucidity at moments, these days when nature is so beautiful, I am not conscious of myself any more, and the picture comes to me as in a dream."
, Georges Seurat and others who provided illuminating influences on the use of color and technique. His work, previously somber and dark, now "blazed with color." His use of color was so dramatic that Van Gogh was sometimes called an Expressionist.
While Van Gogh learned much about color and technique in Paris, southern France provided an opportunity to express his "surging emotions." Enlightened by the effects of the sun drenched countryside in southern France, Van Gogh reported that above all, his work "promises color." This is where he began development of his masterpieces.
Van Gogh used complementary, contrasting colors to bring an intensity to his work, which evolved over the periods of his work. Two complementary colors of the same degree of vividness and contrast." Van Gogh mentioned the liveliness and interplay of "a wedding of two complementary colors, their mingling and opposition, the mysterious vibrations of two kindred souls." An example of use of complementary colors is The Sower where gold is contrasted to purple and blue with orange to intensify the impact of the work.
The four seasons were reflected in lime green and silver of spring, yellow when the wheat matured, beige and then burnished gold.
, there were just a few of his paintings where wheat was the subject.
The first, Sheaves of Wheat in a Field was painted July-August 1885 in Nuenen
, Netherlands
. Here the emphasis is on the land and labor is suggested by the "bulging wheat stacks." This work was made several months after The Potato Eaters
at a time when he was looking to free himself physically, emotionally and artistically from the gray colors of his art and life, moving away from Nuenen to develop, as author Albert Lubin describes, a more "imaginative, colorful art that suited him much better."
Van Gogh, who "particularly admired a poem written by Walt Whitman
about the beauty in a blade of grass", began painting waving stalks of wheat in Paris
. In 1887 he made Wheat Field with a Lark
where Impressionist
influences are reflected in his use of color and management of light and shadow. Brush strokes are made to reflect the objects, like the stalks of wheat. The work reflects the motion of the wheat blowing in the wind, the lark flying and the clouds streaking from the currents in the sky. The cycles of life are reflected in the land left by harvested wheat and the growing wheat subject to the forces of the wind, as we are subject to the pressures in our lives. The cycle of life depicted here is both tragic and comforting. The stubble of the harvested wheat reflect the inevitable cycle of death, while the stalks of wheat, flying bird and windswept clouds reflect continual change. Edge of a Wheat Field with Poppies, shown below in black and white, was also painted in 1887.
, some of the most recognizable of Van Gogh's paintings, were created in this time. He worked continuously to keep up with his ideas for paintings. This is likely one of Van Gogh's happier periods of life. He is confident, clear-minded and seemingly content.
In a letter to his brother, Theo
, he wrote, "Painting as it is now, promises to become more subtle - more like music and less like sculpture - and above all, it promises color." As a means of explanation, Van Gogh explains that being like music means being comforting.
A prolific time, in less than 444 days van Gogh made about 100 drawings and produced more than 200 paintings. Yet, he still found time and energy to write more than 200 letters. While he painted quickly, mindful of the pace farmers would need to work in the hot sun, he spent time thinking about his paintings long before he put brush to canvas.
His work during this period represents a culmination of influences, such as Impressionism
, Neo-Impressionism
and Japanese art (see Japonism
). His style evolved into one with vivid colors and energetic, impasto
brush strokes.
, replicating the nimbus
from Eugène Delacroix
's Christ Asleep during the Tempest. Van Gogh depicts the cycle of life in the sowing of wheat against the field of mature wheat, there is death, like the setting sun, but also rebirth. The sun will rise again. wheat has been cut, but the sower plants seeds for a new crop. Leaves have fallen from the tree in the distance, but leaves will grow again.
In The Sower Van Gogh uses complementary colors to bring intensity to the picture. Blue and orange flecks in the plowed field and violet and gold in the spring wheat behind the sower. Van Gogh used colors symbolically and for affect, when speaking of the colors in this work he said: I couldn't care less what the colours are in reality.
Inspired by Jean-François Millet
van Gogh made several paintings after The Sower by Millet. Van Gogh made seven other "Sower" paintings, one in 1883 and the other six after this work.
Wheat Fields also Wheat Fields with the Alpilles Foothills in the Background is a view of the vast, spreading plain against a low horizon. Nearly the entire canvas is filled with the wheat field. In the foreground is green wheat of yellow, green, red, brown and black colors, which sets off the more mature, golden yellow wheat. The Alpilles
range is just visible in the distance.
Van Gogh wrote about Sunset: Wheat Fields Near Arles: "A summer sun... town purple, celestial body yellow, sky green-blue. The wheat has all the hues of old gold, copper, green-gold or red-gold, yellow gold, yellow bronze, red-green." He made this work during the height of the mistral
winds. To prevent his canvas from flying away, van Gogh drove the easel into the ground and secured the canvas to the easel with rope.
Arles: View from the Wheat Fields (Wheat Field with Sheaves and Arles in the Background), another painting of this series, represents the harvest. In the foreground are sheaves of harvested wheat leaning against one another. The center of the painting depicts the harvesting process.
Wheat Stacks with Reaper was made in June, 1888 (as indicated by the F number sequence) or June 1890 in Auvers as noted by the Toledo Museum of Art
, where it resides. Of the figure "the reaper" Van Gogh expressed his symbolic, spiritual view of those who worked close to nature in a letter to his sister in 1889: "aren’t we, who live on bread, to a considerable extent like wheat, at least aren't we forced to submit to growing like a plant without the power to move, by which I mean in whatever way our imagination impels us, and to being reaped when we are ripe, like the same wheat?"
Harvest in Provence is a particularly relaxed version of the harvest paintings. The painting, made just outside of Arles, is an example of how Van Gogh used color in full brilliance to depict "the burning brightness of the heat wave." The painting is also called the Grain Harvest of Provence or Corn Harvest of Provence.
In the foreground of Honolulu Academy of Art's Wheat Field are sheaves of harvested wheat. Horizontal bands mark the wheat fields, behind which are trees and houses on the horizon. His work, like that of his friend Paul Gauguin
, that emphasized personal expression over literal composition led to the expressionist movement
and towards twentieth-century Modernism
.
in the Background is made in horizontal planes. The harvested wheat lies in the foreground. In the center the activities for harvest are represented by the haystack, ladders, carts and a man with a pitchfork. The background is purple-blue mountains against a turquoise sky. He was interested in depicting "the essence of country life." In June Van Gogh wrote of the landscape at La Crau
that it was "beautiful and endless as the sea." One of his most important works, the landscape reminded him of paintings by 17th century Dutch masters
, Ruysdael and Philips Koninck
. He also compared this work favorably with his painting The White Orchard.
Wheat Stacks in Provence, made about the 12th or 13th of June, was intended by Van Gogh to be a complimentary work to the Harvest painting. Ladders appear in both paintings which help to create a pastoral
feeling.
in Provence. There Van Gogh had access to an adjacent cell he used as his studio. He was initially confined to the immediate asylum grounds and painted (without the bars) the world he saw from his room, such as ivy covered trees, lilacs, and irises of the garden. Through the open bars Van Gogh could also see an enclosed wheat field, subject of many paintings at Saint-Rémy. As he ventured outside of the asylum walls, he painted the wheat fields, olive groves, and cypress trees of the surrounding countryside, which he saw as "characteristic of Provence." Over the course of the year, he painted about 150 canvases.
" that he could see from his cell at Saint-Paul Hospital. From the studio room he could see a field of wheat, enclosed by a wall. Beyond that were the mountains from Arles. During his stay at the asylum he made about twelve paintings of the view of the enclosed wheat field and distant mountains. In May Van Gogh wrote to Theo, "Through the iron-barred window I see a square field of wheat in an enclosure, a perspective like Van Goyen, above which I see the morning sun rising in all its glory." The stone wall, like a picture frame, helped to display the changing colors of the wheat field.
In early July Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo of a work he began in June, Wheat Field with Cypresses
: "I have a canvas of cypresses with some ears of wheat, some poppies, a blue sky like a piece of Scotch plaid; the former painted with a thick impasto . . . and the wheat field in the sun, which represents the extreme heat, very thick too." Van Gogh who regarded this landscape as one of his "best" summer paintings made two additional oil paintings very similar in composition that fall. One of the two is in a private collection.
London's National Gallery
A Wheat Field, with Cypresses painting was made in September which author H.W. Janson describes: "the field is like a stormy sea; the trees spring flamelike from the ground; and the hills and clouds heave with the same surge of motion. Every stroke stands out boldly in a long ribbon of strong, unmixed color."
The is also another version of Wheat Fields with Cypresses made in September with a blue-green sky, reportedly held at the Tate Gallery
in London (F743).
In October Van Gogh made Enclosed Wheat Field with Ploughman.
Wheat Fields in a Mountainous Landscape, also titled Meadow in the Mountains was painted in Late November - early December 1889.
In November, Wheat Field Behind Saint-Paul was painted by Van Gogh, now owned by Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
to Paris
where he had a three day stay with his brother, Theo
, Theo's wife Johanna
and their new baby Vincent. Van Gogh found that unlike his past experiences in Paris, he was no longer used to the commotion of the city and was too agitated to paint. His brother, Theo and artist Camille Pissarro
developed a plan for Van Gogh to go to Auvers-sur-Oise
with a letter of introduction for Dr. Paul Gachet
, a homeopathic physician and art patron who lived in Auvers. Van Gogh had a room at the inn Auberge Ravoux in Auvers and was under the care and supervision of Dr. Gachet with whom he grew to have a close relationship, "something like another brother."
For a time, Van Gogh seemed to improve. He began to paint at such a steady pace, there was barely space in his room for all the finished paintings. From May until his death on July 29, Van Gogh made about 70 paintings, more than one a day, and many drawings.." Van Gogh painted buildings around the town of Auvers, such as The Church at Auvers
, portraits, and the nearby fields.
Van Gogh arrived in Auvers in late spring as pea plants and wheat fields on gently sloping hills ripened for harvest. The area bustled as migrant workers from France and Brussels descended on the area for the harvest. Partial to rural life, Van Gogh strongly portrayed the beauty of the Auvers country side. He wrote his brother, "I have one study of old thatched roofs with a field of peas in flower in the foreground and some wheat, the background of hills, a study which I think you will like."
was painted when the crop was on the verge of harvest. Sheaves of Wheat painted after the harvest and concluding with "Field with Haystacks" (private collection).
Green Wheat Fields or Field with Green Wheat was made in May.
Wheat Field at Auvers with White House was made in June. The paintings in mainly a large green field of wheat. In the background is a white house behind a wall and a tree.
The outlying fields of Auvers, setting for Wheat Fields after the Rain (The Plain of Auvers), form a "zig-zag, patchwork pattern," of yellows, blues, and greens. In the last letter that Van Gogh wrote to his mother he described being very calm, something needed for this work, an "immense plain with wheat fields up as far as the hills, boundless as the ocean, delicate yellow, delicate soft green, the delicate purple of a tilled and weeded piece of ground, with the regular speckle of the green of flowering potato plants, everything under a sky of delicate tones of blue, white, pink and violet." This painting was also called Wheat Fields at Auvers Under Clouded Sky.
Van Gogh described Ears of Wheat to painter and friend Paul Gauguin
as "nothing more than ears of wheat, green-blue stalks long, ribbon-like leaves, under a sheen of green & pink; ears of wheat, yellowing slightly, with an edge made pale pink by the dusty manner of flowering; at the bottom, a pink bindweed winding round a stalk. I would like to paint portraits against a background that is so lively and yet so still." The painting depicts "the soft rustle of the ears of grain swaying back and forth in the wind." He used the motif as the background to a portrait.
The Fields was painted in July and held in a private collection.
An animated Wheatfield with Cornflowers shows the effect of a gust of wind that ripples through the yellow stalks, seeming to "overflow" into the blue background. The heads of a few stalks of wheat seem to have detached themselves, diving into the blue of the hills in the background.
Wheat Fields near Auvers, 1890, owned by Österreichische Galerie Belvedere
, Vienna was also described by van Gogh as a landscape of the vast wheat fields after a rain.
Van Gogh brings the spectator directly into Sheaves of Wheat by filling the picture plane with eight sheaves of wheat, as if seeing it from a worker's perspective. The sheaves, bathed in yellow light, appear to be recently cut. For contrast, Van Gogh uses the complementary, vivid lavender for shadows and earth in the nearby field.
In van Gogh's Wheatfields Under Thunderclouds, also called Wheat Fields Under Clouded Sky, landscape he depicts the loneliness of the countryside and the degree to which it was "healthy and heartening."
The Van Gogh Museum
's Wheat Field with Crows
was made in July 1890, in the last weeks of Van Gogh’s life, many have claimed it was his last work. Others have claimed Tree Roots was his last painting. Wheat Field with Crows, made on an elongated canvas, depicts a dramatic cloudy sky filled with crows over a wheat field. The wind-swept wheat field fills two thirds of the canvas. An empty path pulls the audience into the painting. Jules Michelet, one of Van Gogh's favorite authors, wrote of the crow: "They interest themselves in everything, and observe everything. The ancients, who lived far more completely than ourselves in and with nature, found it no small profit to follow, in a hundred obscure things where human experience as yet affords no light, the directions so prudent and sage a bird." Of making the painting Van Gogh wrote that he did not have a hard time depicting the sadness and emptiness of the painting, which was powerfully offset by the restorative nature of the countryside. Erickson, author of Eternity's Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent van Gogh, cautious of attributing stylistic changes in his work to mental illness, finds the painting expresses both the sorrow and the sense of his life coming to an end. The crows, used by Van Gogh as symbol of death and rebirth or resurrection, visually draw the spectator into the painting. The road, in contrasting colors of red and green, is thought to be a metaphor for a sermon he gave based on Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" where the pilgrim is sorrowful that the road is so long, yet rejoicing because the Eternal City waits at the journey's end.
Wheat Stack Under Clouded Sky also called Haystack under a Rainy Sky, was made July 1890, Kröller-Müller Museum
, Otterlo
, Netherlands
(F563).
Field with Stacks of Grain, at Beyeler Foundation
, Riehen, Switzerland (F809) is one of van Gogh’s very last paintings, is both more rigid and at the same time more abstract than other paintings of this series, such as Wheatfield with Cornflowers. Two large stacks of wheat fill the painting like "abandoned buildings," seeming to cut off the sky.
Wheat Fields with Auvers in the Background also painted in July is part of the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire collection in Geneva (F801).
After visiting Paris for a family conference, Van Gogh returned to Auvers feeling more bleak. In a letter he wrote, "And the prospect grows darker, I see no future at all."
He later had a period where he said that "the trouble I had in my head has considerably calmed...I am completely absorbed in that immense plain covered with fields of wheat against the hills boundless as the sea in delicate colors of yellow and green, the pale violet of the plowed and weeded earth checkered at regular intervals with the green of the flowering potato plants, everything under a sky of delicate blue, white, pink, and violet. I am almost too calm, a state that is necessary to paint all that."
Four days after completing Wheat Fields after the Rain he shot himself in the Auvers wheat fields. Van Gogh died on July 29, 1890.
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
painted dozens of Wheat Fields (series of paintings), borne out of his religious studies and sermons, connection to nature, appreciation of manual laborers and desire to provide a means of offering comfort to others. The wheat field works demonstrate his progression as an artist from the drab Wheat Sheaves made in 1885 in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
to the colorful, dramatic paintings from Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
, Saint-Rémy
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-Geography:...
and Auvers-sur-Oise
Auvers-sur-Oise
Auvers-sur-Oise is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is associated with several famous artists, the most prominent being Vincent van Gogh.-History:...
of rural France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
Wheat as a subject
Failing to find a vocation in ministry, Van Gogh turned to art as a means to express and communicate his deepest sense of the meaning of life. Cliff Edwards, author of "Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest" wrote: "Vincent's life was a quest for unification, a search for how to integrate the ideas of religion, art, literature, and nature that motivated him."Van Gogh came to view painting as a calling, "I feel a certain indebtedness [to the world] and... out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures -- not made to please a certain taste in art, but to express a sincere feeling." When Van Gogh left Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
for Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
, he sought an anecdote to the ills of city life and work among laborers in the field "giving his art and life the value he recognized in rural toil."
In the series of paintings about wheat fields, Van Gogh expresses through symbolism and use of color his deeply felt spiritual beliefs, appreciation of manual laborers and connection to nature.
Spiritual significance
As a young man Van Gogh pursued what he saw as a religious calling, wanting to minister to working people. In 1876 he was assigned a post in IsleworthIsleworth
Isleworth is a small town of Saxon origin sited within the London Borough of Hounslow in west London, England. It lies immediately east of the town of Hounslow and west of the River Thames and its tributary the River Crane. Isleworth's original area of settlement, alongside the Thames, is known as...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to teach Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
classes and occasionally preach in the Methodist church.
When he returned to the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
he studied for the ministry
Christian ministry
In Christianity, ministry is an activity carried out by Christians to express or spread their faith. 2003's Encyclopedia of Christianity defines it as "carrying forth Christ's mission in the world", indicating that it is "conferred on each Christian in baptism." It is performed by all Christians...
and also for lay ministry
Lay ministry
Lay ministry is a term used for members of faiths and Christian denominations who are not full-time paid clergy, or not ordained clergy, but who perform the same or similar function....
or missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
work without finishing either field of study. With support from his father, Van Gogh went to Borinage
Borinage
The Borinage is an area in the Walloon province of Hainaut. The provincial capital Mons is located in the east of the Borinage. In French the inhabitants are called Borains...
in southern Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
where he nursed and ministered to coal miners. There he obtained a six-month trial position for a small salary where he preached in an old dance hall and established and taught Bible school. His self-imposed zeal and asceticism
Asceticism
Asceticism describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals...
cost him the position.
After a nine-month period of withdrawal from society and family; he rejected the church establishment, yet found his personal vision of spirituality
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
, "The best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife, something - whatever you like - (and) you will be on the way to knowing more about Him; this is what I say to myself. But one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence." By 1879, he made a shift in the direction of his life and found he could express his "love of God and man" through painting.
Drawn to Biblical parables, Van Gogh found wheat fields metaphors for humanity's cycles of life, as both celebration of growth and realization of the susceptibility of nature's powerful forces.
- Of the Biblical symbolism of sowing and reaping Van Gogh taught in his Bible lessons: "One does not expect to get from life what one has already learned it cannot give; rather, one begins to see more clearly that life is a kind of sowing time, and the harvest is not here."
- The image of the sower came to Van Gogh in Biblical teachings from his childhood, such as:
- "A sower went out to sow. As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it had not much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil; and when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty fold, and sixty fold and a hundredfold.(Mark 4:3-8)
- Van Gogh used the digger and ploughmanPloughThe plough or plow is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture...
as symbols of struggle to reach the kingdom of GodGodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
.
- He was particularly enamored with "the good God sun" and called anyone who didn't believe in the sun infidels. The painting of the haloed sun was a characteristic style seen in many of his paintings, representing the divineDivinityDivinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...
, in reference to the nimbusHalo (religious iconography)A halo is a ring of light that surrounds a person in art. They have been used in the iconography of many religions to indicate holy or sacred figures, and have at various periods also been used in images of rulers or heroes...
in Delacroix'sEugène DelacroixFerdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...
Christ Asleep During the Tempest.
- Van Gogh found storms important for their restorative nature, symbolizing "the better times of pure air and the rejuvenation of all society." Van Gogh also found storms to reveal the divine.
Field workers
The "peasant genre" that greatly influenced Van Gogh began in the 1840s with the works of Jean-François MilletJean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France...
, Jules Breton, and others. In 1885 Van Gogh described the painting of peasants as the most essential contribution to modern art. He described the works of Millet and Breton of religious significance, "something on high," and described them as the "voices of the wheat."
Throughout Van Gogh's adulthood he had an interest in serving others, especially manual workers. As a young man he served and ministered to coal miners in Borinage
Borinage
The Borinage is an area in the Walloon province of Hainaut. The provincial capital Mons is located in the east of the Borinage. In French the inhabitants are called Borains...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
which seemed to bring him close to his calling of being a missionary or minister to workers.
A common denominator in his favored authors and artists was sentimental treatment of the destitute and downtrodden. Referring to painting of peasants Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo
Theo van Gogh (art dealer)
Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting...
: "How shall I ever manage to paint what I love so much?" He held laborers up to a high standard of how dedicatedly he should approach painting, "One must undertake with confidence, with a certain assurance that one is doing a reasonable thing, like the farmer who drives his plow... (one who) drags the harrow
Harrow (tool)
In agriculture, a harrow is an implement for breaking up and smoothing out the surface of the soil. In this way it is distinct in its effect from the plough, which is used for deeper tillage. Harrowing is often carried out on fields to follow the rough finish left by ploughing operations...
behind himself. If one hasn't a horse, one is one's own horse."
Connection to nature
Van Gogh used nature for inspiration, preferring that to abstract studies from imagination. He wrote that rather than making abstract studies: "I am getting well acquainted with nature. I exaggerate, sometime I make change in motif; but for all that, I do not invest the whole picture; on the contrary, I find it already in nature, only it must be disentangled."The close association of peasants and the cycles of nature particularly interested Van Gogh, such as the sowing of seeds, harvest and sheaves of wheat in the fields. Van Gogh saw plowing, sowing and harvesting symbolic to man's efforts to overwhelm the cycles of nature: "the sower and the wheat sheaf stood for eternity, and the reaper and his scythe
Scythe
A scythe is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass, or reaping crops. It was largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor machinery, but is still used in some areas of Europe and Asia. The Grim Reaper is often depicted carrying or wielding a scythe...
for irrevocable death." The dark hours conducive to germination and regeneration are depicted in The Sower and wheat fields at sunset.
Van Gogh saw in his paintings of wheat fields an opportunity for people to find a sense of calm and meaning, offering more to suffering people than guessing at what they may learn "on the other side of life."
Van Gogh writes Theo that he hopes that his family brings to him "what nature, clods of earth, the grass, yellow wheat, the peasant, are for me, in other words, that you find in your love for people something not only to work for, but to comfort and restore you when there is a need." Further exploring the connection between man and nature, Van Gogh wrote his sister Wil, "What the germinating
Germination
Germination is the process in which a plant or fungus emerges from a seed or spore, respectively, and begins growth. The most common example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm. However the growth of a sporeling from a spore, for example the...
force is in a grain of wheat, love is in us."
At times Van Gogh was so enamored with nature that his sense of self seemed lost in the intensity of his work: "I have a terrible lucidity at moments, these days when nature is so beautiful, I am not conscious of myself any more, and the picture comes to me as in a dream."
Color
Wheat fields provided a subject in which Van Gogh could experiment with color. Tired of his work in the Netherlands made with dull, gray colors, van Gogh sought to create work that was more creative and colorful. In Paris Van Gogh met leading French artists Edgar DegasEdgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
, Georges Seurat and others who provided illuminating influences on the use of color and technique. His work, previously somber and dark, now "blazed with color." His use of color was so dramatic that Van Gogh was sometimes called an Expressionist.
While Van Gogh learned much about color and technique in Paris, southern France provided an opportunity to express his "surging emotions." Enlightened by the effects of the sun drenched countryside in southern France, Van Gogh reported that above all, his work "promises color." This is where he began development of his masterpieces.
Van Gogh used complementary, contrasting colors to bring an intensity to his work, which evolved over the periods of his work. Two complementary colors of the same degree of vividness and contrast." Van Gogh mentioned the liveliness and interplay of "a wedding of two complementary colors, their mingling and opposition, the mysterious vibrations of two kindred souls." An example of use of complementary colors is The Sower where gold is contrasted to purple and blue with orange to intensify the impact of the work.
The four seasons were reflected in lime green and silver of spring, yellow when the wheat matured, beige and then burnished gold.
Nuenen and Paris
Prior to Van Gogh's exploration of southern FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, there were just a few of his paintings where wheat was the subject.
The first, Sheaves of Wheat in a Field was painted July-August 1885 in Nuenen
Nuenen
Nuenen is a town in the municipality of Nuenen, Gerwen en Nederwetten, in the Netherlands.Vincent Van Gogh resided in Nuenen from 1883-1885. During that time he painted many character studies of peasants and weavers that culminated in The Potato Eaters...
, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. Here the emphasis is on the land and labor is suggested by the "bulging wheat stacks." This work was made several months after The Potato Eaters
The Potato Eaters
The Potato Eaters is a painting by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh which he painted in April 1885 while in Nuenen, Netherlands. It is housed in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam...
at a time when he was looking to free himself physically, emotionally and artistically from the gray colors of his art and life, moving away from Nuenen to develop, as author Albert Lubin describes, a more "imaginative, colorful art that suited him much better."
Van Gogh, who "particularly admired a poem written by Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
about the beauty in a blade of grass", began painting waving stalks of wheat in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In 1887 he made Wheat Field with a Lark
Wheat Field with a Lark
In 1887, while Vincent van Gogh was residing in Paris, he executed an oil painting commonly known as Wheat Field with a Lark.The center part shows a partially-harvested field of wheat under a sky patterned with light clouds. A lark takes flight toward the upper right.The painting measures 21-1/4 x...
where Impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
influences are reflected in his use of color and management of light and shadow. Brush strokes are made to reflect the objects, like the stalks of wheat. The work reflects the motion of the wheat blowing in the wind, the lark flying and the clouds streaking from the currents in the sky. The cycles of life are reflected in the land left by harvested wheat and the growing wheat subject to the forces of the wind, as we are subject to the pressures in our lives. The cycle of life depicted here is both tragic and comforting. The stubble of the harvested wheat reflect the inevitable cycle of death, while the stalks of wheat, flying bird and windswept clouds reflect continual change. Edge of a Wheat Field with Poppies, shown below in black and white, was also painted in 1887.
Arles
Van Gogh was about 35 years of age when he moved to Arles in southern France. There he was at the height of his career, producing some of his best work. His paintings represented different aspects of ordinary life, such as Harvest at La Crau. The sunflower paintingsSunflowers (series of paintings)
Sunflowers are the subject of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. The earlier series executed in Paris in 1887 gives the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set executed a year later in Arles shows bouquets of sunflowers in a vase...
, some of the most recognizable of Van Gogh's paintings, were created in this time. He worked continuously to keep up with his ideas for paintings. This is likely one of Van Gogh's happier periods of life. He is confident, clear-minded and seemingly content.
In a letter to his brother, Theo
Theo van Gogh (art dealer)
Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting...
, he wrote, "Painting as it is now, promises to become more subtle - more like music and less like sculpture - and above all, it promises color." As a means of explanation, Van Gogh explains that being like music means being comforting.
A prolific time, in less than 444 days van Gogh made about 100 drawings and produced more than 200 paintings. Yet, he still found time and energy to write more than 200 letters. While he painted quickly, mindful of the pace farmers would need to work in the hot sun, he spent time thinking about his paintings long before he put brush to canvas.
His work during this period represents a culmination of influences, such as Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, Neo-Impressionism
Neo-impressionism
Neo-impressionism was coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat’s greatest masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, marked the beginning of this movement when it first made its appearance at an exhibition...
and Japanese art (see Japonism
Japonism
Japonism, or Japonisme, the original French term, was first used in 1872 by Jules Claretie in his book L'Art Francais en 1872 and by Philippe Burty in Japanisme III. La Renaissance Literaire et Artistique in the same year...
). His style evolved into one with vivid colors and energetic, impasto
Impasto
In English, the borrowed Italian word impasto most commonly refers to a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface very thickly, usually thickly enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas...
brush strokes.
May farmhouses
Both Farmhouse in a Wheat Field and Farmhouses in Wheat Field Near Arles were made in May, 1888 which Van Gogh described at the time: "A little town surrounded by fields completely blooming with yellow and purple flowers; you know, it is a beautiful Japanese dream."June - The Sower
The audience is drawn into the painting by the glowing disk of the rising sun in citron-yellow which Van Gogh intended to represent the divineDivinity
Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...
, replicating the nimbus
Halo (religious iconography)
A halo is a ring of light that surrounds a person in art. They have been used in the iconography of many religions to indicate holy or sacred figures, and have at various periods also been used in images of rulers or heroes...
from Eugène Delacroix
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...
's Christ Asleep during the Tempest. Van Gogh depicts the cycle of life in the sowing of wheat against the field of mature wheat, there is death, like the setting sun, but also rebirth. The sun will rise again. wheat has been cut, but the sower plants seeds for a new crop. Leaves have fallen from the tree in the distance, but leaves will grow again.
In The Sower Van Gogh uses complementary colors to bring intensity to the picture. Blue and orange flecks in the plowed field and violet and gold in the spring wheat behind the sower. Van Gogh used colors symbolically and for affect, when speaking of the colors in this work he said: I couldn't care less what the colours are in reality.
Inspired by Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France...
van Gogh made several paintings after The Sower by Millet. Van Gogh made seven other "Sower" paintings, one in 1883 and the other six after this work.
June - harvest
During the last half of June he worked on a group of ten "Harvest" paintings, which allowed him to experiment with color and technique. "I have now spent a week working hard in the wheatfields, under the blazing sun," Van Gogh wrote on 21 June 1888 to his brother Theo. He described the series of wheat fields as "…landscapes, yellow—old gold—done quickly, quickly, quickly, and in a hurry just like the harvester who is silent under the blazing sun, intent only on the reaping."Wheat Fields also Wheat Fields with the Alpilles Foothills in the Background is a view of the vast, spreading plain against a low horizon. Nearly the entire canvas is filled with the wheat field. In the foreground is green wheat of yellow, green, red, brown and black colors, which sets off the more mature, golden yellow wheat. The Alpilles
Alpilles
The Chaîne des Alpilles is a small range of mountains in Provence, southern France, located about south of Avignon at approximately .-Geography:The range is an extension of the much larger Luberon range...
range is just visible in the distance.
Van Gogh wrote about Sunset: Wheat Fields Near Arles: "A summer sun... town purple, celestial body yellow, sky green-blue. The wheat has all the hues of old gold, copper, green-gold or red-gold, yellow gold, yellow bronze, red-green." He made this work during the height of the mistral
Mistral (wind)
The mistral is a strong, cold and usually dry regional wind in France, coming from the north or northwest, which accelerates when it passes through the valleys of the Rhone and the Durance Rivers to the coast of the Mediterranean around the Camargue region. It affects the northeast of the plain...
winds. To prevent his canvas from flying away, van Gogh drove the easel into the ground and secured the canvas to the easel with rope.
Arles: View from the Wheat Fields (Wheat Field with Sheaves and Arles in the Background), another painting of this series, represents the harvest. In the foreground are sheaves of harvested wheat leaning against one another. The center of the painting depicts the harvesting process.
Wheat Stacks with Reaper was made in June, 1888 (as indicated by the F number sequence) or June 1890 in Auvers as noted by the Toledo Museum of Art
Toledo Museum of Art
The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio, United States. The museum was founded by Toledo glassmaker Edward Drummond Libbey in 1901, and moved to its present location, a Greek revival building designed by Edward B....
, where it resides. Of the figure "the reaper" Van Gogh expressed his symbolic, spiritual view of those who worked close to nature in a letter to his sister in 1889: "aren’t we, who live on bread, to a considerable extent like wheat, at least aren't we forced to submit to growing like a plant without the power to move, by which I mean in whatever way our imagination impels us, and to being reaped when we are ripe, like the same wheat?"
Harvest in Provence is a particularly relaxed version of the harvest paintings. The painting, made just outside of Arles, is an example of how Van Gogh used color in full brilliance to depict "the burning brightness of the heat wave." The painting is also called the Grain Harvest of Provence or Corn Harvest of Provence.
In the foreground of Honolulu Academy of Art's Wheat Field are sheaves of harvested wheat. Horizontal bands mark the wheat fields, behind which are trees and houses on the horizon. His work, like that of his friend Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
, that emphasized personal expression over literal composition led to the expressionist movement
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
and towards twentieth-century Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
.
June - complimentary harvest paintings
Harvest, named by Van Gogh himself, or Harvest at La Crau, with MontmajourMontmajour Abbey
Montmajour Abbey is a fortified Benedictine monastery built between the 10th and 13th century on what was then an island five kilometers north of Arles, in the Bouches-du-Rhône département, Provence, in the south of France.The Abbey is noted for its 11th-14th century graves, carved in the rock,...
in the Background is made in horizontal planes. The harvested wheat lies in the foreground. In the center the activities for harvest are represented by the haystack, ladders, carts and a man with a pitchfork. The background is purple-blue mountains against a turquoise sky. He was interested in depicting "the essence of country life." In June Van Gogh wrote of the landscape at La Crau
La Crau
La Crau is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.-References:*...
that it was "beautiful and endless as the sea." One of his most important works, the landscape reminded him of paintings by 17th century Dutch masters
Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history generally spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade,...
, Ruysdael and Philips Koninck
Philip de Koninck
Philip de Koninck, or Philips Koninck was a Dutch landscape painter and younger brother of Jacob Koninck....
. He also compared this work favorably with his painting The White Orchard.
Wheat Stacks in Provence, made about the 12th or 13th of June, was intended by Van Gogh to be a complimentary work to the Harvest painting. Ladders appear in both paintings which help to create a pastoral
Pastoral
The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
feeling.
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Saint-Rémy
In May 1889 Van Gogh voluntarily entered the asylum of St. Paul near Saint-RémySaint-Rémy-de-Provence
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-Geography:...
in Provence. There Van Gogh had access to an adjacent cell he used as his studio. He was initially confined to the immediate asylum grounds and painted (without the bars) the world he saw from his room, such as ivy covered trees, lilacs, and irises of the garden. Through the open bars Van Gogh could also see an enclosed wheat field, subject of many paintings at Saint-Rémy. As he ventured outside of the asylum walls, he painted the wheat fields, olive groves, and cypress trees of the surrounding countryside, which he saw as "characteristic of Provence." Over the course of the year, he painted about 150 canvases.
The Wheat Field
Van Gogh worked on a group of paintings "The Wheat FieldThe Wheat Field
The Wheat Field is a series of oil paintings executed by Vincent van Gogh in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. All of them depict the view Van Gogh had from the window of his bedroom on the top floor of the asylum: a field enclosed by stone walls just beneath his window and excluded from normal life by the...
" that he could see from his cell at Saint-Paul Hospital. From the studio room he could see a field of wheat, enclosed by a wall. Beyond that were the mountains from Arles. During his stay at the asylum he made about twelve paintings of the view of the enclosed wheat field and distant mountains. In May Van Gogh wrote to Theo, "Through the iron-barred window I see a square field of wheat in an enclosure, a perspective like Van Goyen, above which I see the morning sun rising in all its glory." The stone wall, like a picture frame, helped to display the changing colors of the wheat field.
Wheat field with cypresses
The wheat field with cypresses paintings were made when van Gogh was able to leave the asylum. Van Gogh had a fondness for cypresses and wheat fields of which he wrote: "Only I have no news to tell you, for the days are all the same, I have no ideas, except to think that a field of wheat or a cypress well worth the trouble of looking at closeup."In early July Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo of a work he began in June, Wheat Field with Cypresses
Wheat Field with Cypresses
A Wheatfield with Cypresses is any of three similar 1889 paintings by Vincent van Gogh. The National Gallery in London holds a September 1889 version. Another, painted in July of the same year, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The third is held by a private collection...
: "I have a canvas of cypresses with some ears of wheat, some poppies, a blue sky like a piece of Scotch plaid; the former painted with a thick impasto . . . and the wheat field in the sun, which represents the extreme heat, very thick too." Van Gogh who regarded this landscape as one of his "best" summer paintings made two additional oil paintings very similar in composition that fall. One of the two is in a private collection.
London's National Gallery
National gallery
The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
A Wheat Field, with Cypresses painting was made in September which author H.W. Janson describes: "the field is like a stormy sea; the trees spring flamelike from the ground; and the hills and clouds heave with the same surge of motion. Every stroke stands out boldly in a long ribbon of strong, unmixed color."
The is also another version of Wheat Fields with Cypresses made in September with a blue-green sky, reportedly held at the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
in London (F743).
Other wheat field paintings
Van Gogh describes the ripening Green Wheat Field with Cypresses painted in June: "a field of wheat turning yellow, surrounded by blackberry bushes and green shrubs. At the end of the field there is a little house with a tall somber cypress which stands out against the far-off hills with their violet-like and bluish tones, and against a sky the colour of forget-me-nots with pink streaks, whose pure hues form a contrast with the scorched ears, which are already heavy, and have the warm tones of a bread crust."In October Van Gogh made Enclosed Wheat Field with Ploughman.
Wheat Fields in a Mountainous Landscape, also titled Meadow in the Mountains was painted in Late November - early December 1889.
In November, Wheat Field Behind Saint-Paul was painted by Van Gogh, now owned by Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Auvers-sur-Oise
In May 1890, Van Gogh traveled from Saint-RémySaint-Rémy-de-Provence
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-Geography:...
to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where he had a three day stay with his brother, Theo
Theo van Gogh (art dealer)
Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting...
, Theo's wife Johanna
Johanna van Gogh-Bonger
Johanna Gezina van Gogh-Bonger was the wife of Theo van Gogh, art dealer, and the sister-in-law of the painter Vincent van Gogh. After the death of Vincent and her husband she worked assiduously on editing the brothers' correspondence, producing the first volume in Dutch in 1914...
and their new baby Vincent. Van Gogh found that unlike his past experiences in Paris, he was no longer used to the commotion of the city and was too agitated to paint. His brother, Theo and artist Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
developed a plan for Van Gogh to go to Auvers-sur-Oise
Auvers-sur-Oise
Auvers-sur-Oise is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is associated with several famous artists, the most prominent being Vincent van Gogh.-History:...
with a letter of introduction for Dr. Paul Gachet
Paul Gachet
Paul-Ferdinand Gachet was a French physician most famous for treating the painter Vincent van Gogh during his last weeks in Auvers-sur-Oise. Gachet was a great supporter of artists and the Impressionist movement...
, a homeopathic physician and art patron who lived in Auvers. Van Gogh had a room at the inn Auberge Ravoux in Auvers and was under the care and supervision of Dr. Gachet with whom he grew to have a close relationship, "something like another brother."
For a time, Van Gogh seemed to improve. He began to paint at such a steady pace, there was barely space in his room for all the finished paintings. From May until his death on July 29, Van Gogh made about 70 paintings, more than one a day, and many drawings.." Van Gogh painted buildings around the town of Auvers, such as The Church at Auvers
The Church at Auvers
The Church at Auvers was painted by Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh in 1890.-History:...
, portraits, and the nearby fields.
Van Gogh arrived in Auvers in late spring as pea plants and wheat fields on gently sloping hills ripened for harvest. The area bustled as migrant workers from France and Brussels descended on the area for the harvest. Partial to rural life, Van Gogh strongly portrayed the beauty of the Auvers country side. He wrote his brother, "I have one study of old thatched roofs with a field of peas in flower in the foreground and some wheat, the background of hills, a study which I think you will like."
Wheat harvest series
Van Gogh painted thirteen large canvases of horizontal landscapes of the wheat harvest that occurs in the region from the middle to late July. The series began with Wheat Field under Cloudy Sky then Wheat Field with CrowsWheat Field with Crows
Wheatfield with Crows is a July 1890 painting by Vincent van Gogh. It is commonly but mistakenly stated that this was Van Gogh's last painting...
was painted when the crop was on the verge of harvest. Sheaves of Wheat painted after the harvest and concluding with "Field with Haystacks" (private collection).
Green Wheat Fields or Field with Green Wheat was made in May.
Wheat Field at Auvers with White House was made in June. The paintings in mainly a large green field of wheat. In the background is a white house behind a wall and a tree.
The outlying fields of Auvers, setting for Wheat Fields after the Rain (The Plain of Auvers), form a "zig-zag, patchwork pattern," of yellows, blues, and greens. In the last letter that Van Gogh wrote to his mother he described being very calm, something needed for this work, an "immense plain with wheat fields up as far as the hills, boundless as the ocean, delicate yellow, delicate soft green, the delicate purple of a tilled and weeded piece of ground, with the regular speckle of the green of flowering potato plants, everything under a sky of delicate tones of blue, white, pink and violet." This painting was also called Wheat Fields at Auvers Under Clouded Sky.
Van Gogh described Ears of Wheat to painter and friend Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
as "nothing more than ears of wheat, green-blue stalks long, ribbon-like leaves, under a sheen of green & pink; ears of wheat, yellowing slightly, with an edge made pale pink by the dusty manner of flowering; at the bottom, a pink bindweed winding round a stalk. I would like to paint portraits against a background that is so lively and yet so still." The painting depicts "the soft rustle of the ears of grain swaying back and forth in the wind." He used the motif as the background to a portrait.
The Fields was painted in July and held in a private collection.
An animated Wheatfield with Cornflowers shows the effect of a gust of wind that ripples through the yellow stalks, seeming to "overflow" into the blue background. The heads of a few stalks of wheat seem to have detached themselves, diving into the blue of the hills in the background.
Wheat Fields near Auvers, 1890, owned by Österreichische Galerie Belvedere
Österreichische Galerie Belvedere
The Österreichische Galerie Belvedere is a museum housed in the Belvedere palace, in Vienna, Austria.The art collection includes masterpieces from the Middle Ages and Baroque until the 21st century, though it focuses on Austrian painters from the Fin de Siècle and Art Nouveau period...
, Vienna was also described by van Gogh as a landscape of the vast wheat fields after a rain.
Van Gogh brings the spectator directly into Sheaves of Wheat by filling the picture plane with eight sheaves of wheat, as if seeing it from a worker's perspective. The sheaves, bathed in yellow light, appear to be recently cut. For contrast, Van Gogh uses the complementary, vivid lavender for shadows and earth in the nearby field.
In van Gogh's Wheatfields Under Thunderclouds, also called Wheat Fields Under Clouded Sky, landscape he depicts the loneliness of the countryside and the degree to which it was "healthy and heartening."
The Van Gogh Museum
Van Gogh Museum
The Van Gogh Museum is an art museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, featuring the works of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries. It has the largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in the world.-Background:...
's Wheat Field with Crows
Wheat Field with Crows
Wheatfield with Crows is a July 1890 painting by Vincent van Gogh. It is commonly but mistakenly stated that this was Van Gogh's last painting...
was made in July 1890, in the last weeks of Van Gogh’s life, many have claimed it was his last work. Others have claimed Tree Roots was his last painting. Wheat Field with Crows, made on an elongated canvas, depicts a dramatic cloudy sky filled with crows over a wheat field. The wind-swept wheat field fills two thirds of the canvas. An empty path pulls the audience into the painting. Jules Michelet, one of Van Gogh's favorite authors, wrote of the crow: "They interest themselves in everything, and observe everything. The ancients, who lived far more completely than ourselves in and with nature, found it no small profit to follow, in a hundred obscure things where human experience as yet affords no light, the directions so prudent and sage a bird." Of making the painting Van Gogh wrote that he did not have a hard time depicting the sadness and emptiness of the painting, which was powerfully offset by the restorative nature of the countryside. Erickson, author of Eternity's Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent van Gogh, cautious of attributing stylistic changes in his work to mental illness, finds the painting expresses both the sorrow and the sense of his life coming to an end. The crows, used by Van Gogh as symbol of death and rebirth or resurrection, visually draw the spectator into the painting. The road, in contrasting colors of red and green, is thought to be a metaphor for a sermon he gave based on Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" where the pilgrim is sorrowful that the road is so long, yet rejoicing because the Eternal City waits at the journey's end.
Wheat Stack Under Clouded Sky also called Haystack under a Rainy Sky, was made July 1890, Kröller-Müller Museum
Kröller-Müller Museum
The Kröller-Müller Museum is an art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands.-Museum:...
, Otterlo
Otterlo
Otterlo is a small village in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands, in or near the Nationaal Park De Hoge Veluwe....
, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
(F563).
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Field with Stacks of Grain, at Beyeler Foundation
Beyeler Foundation
The Beyeler Foundation or Fondation Beyeler with its museum in Riehen near Basel owns and oversees the art collection of Hildy and Ernst Beyeler that was built up by the couple over five decades and placed under the aegis of the foundation in 1982. The collection was first publicly exhibited in its...
, Riehen, Switzerland (F809) is one of van Gogh’s very last paintings, is both more rigid and at the same time more abstract than other paintings of this series, such as Wheatfield with Cornflowers. Two large stacks of wheat fill the painting like "abandoned buildings," seeming to cut off the sky.
Wheat Fields with Auvers in the Background also painted in July is part of the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire collection in Geneva (F801).
Emotional turmoil
From Wallace, "But for all his appearance of a renewed well-being his life was very near its end." Illness struck Theo's baby, Vincent. Theo had both health and employment issues; he considered leaving his employer and starting his own business. Gachet, said to have his own eccentricities and neurosis, caused van Gogh concern to which he questioned: "Now when one blind man leads another blind man, don't they both end up in the ditch?"After visiting Paris for a family conference, Van Gogh returned to Auvers feeling more bleak. In a letter he wrote, "And the prospect grows darker, I see no future at all."
He later had a period where he said that "the trouble I had in my head has considerably calmed...I am completely absorbed in that immense plain covered with fields of wheat against the hills boundless as the sea in delicate colors of yellow and green, the pale violet of the plowed and weeded earth checkered at regular intervals with the green of the flowering potato plants, everything under a sky of delicate blue, white, pink, and violet. I am almost too calm, a state that is necessary to paint all that."
Four days after completing Wheat Fields after the Rain he shot himself in the Auvers wheat fields. Van Gogh died on July 29, 1890.