I met Van Gogh at the museum exhibition

A Wheatfield with Cypresses

“A Wheatfield with Cypresses” (also known as “A Cornfield with Cypresses”) is an oil painting by Vincent Van Gogh . It takes part of his wheat field series of the 1889. All were painted in the mental asylum in  France where Van Gogh was voluntary a patient from 1889 to 1890. The works were inspired by the view from the window at the asylum toward.

The F717 painting portraits golden fields of wheat, white clouds moving in an azure sky above, two cypresses on the right and olive trees in the middle distance, with hills and mountains behind. There are also some red flowers  near the fields of wheat.

In my opinion, this picture instills a melancholic feeling but it’s also a symbol of simplicity and minimalism of the life. In fact, when Van Gogh was at the Saint-Rémy mental asylum, he was calm.

The first version (F717) was painted  during a period of fanatic painting. Probably it was made “en plein air” near the subject. After he copied the composition twice in his studio: one almost the same size (F615) of the original and a smaller version(F743).

Vincent sent the smaller version to his mother and his sister as a gift. Then, he sent the original to his brother Theo.

Now the F717 version is in the National Gallery in London, the F615 is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY and the F743 takes part of a private collection.

Costanza Parlapiano III H

Commonly, but erroneously, it is believed that this was the last painting painted by Van Gogh before he died. Art historians are in fact uncertain about what Van Gogh's last painting, since there are no documented sources on the subject. A storm, almost like a presentiment of mourning, is about to break down on a wheat field from which he rises, dark and gloomy, a flock of black crows in a low untidy flight, almost as if they were vultures on a corpse. It is well known that the artist had a profound respect for the forces of nature, and this explains why he painted shaky skies in many of his works: he believed that the subject was endowed with an incalculable artistic potential if reproduced on canvas. The wheat field, shattered mercilessly by the wind, has been realized through real whippings of yellow, while the sky, initially terse, is now a harbinger of storm, to the point of being overshadowed by the intense black colour of the clouds that, inexorably, they fall hostile and threatening. He also painted areas with light colours that probably represent the beautiful moments of life that he never managed to achieve as indicated by the three roads that seem to have no end. G.Guerriero 3H