Wheat Field with Cypresses

Wheat Field with Cypresses is among the most celebrated landscapes Van Gogh produced during his stay at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum near Saint-Remy-de-Provence. Painted en plein air in the summer of 1889, the canvas pulses with energy: golden wheat undulates beneath a turbulent sky, while a towering dark cypress rises like a green flame between the fields and the distant Alpilles mountains.

Van Gogh considered this one of his finest summer compositions. The paint application is extraordinarily physical, with thick impasto strokes building up the wheat and swirling clouds into near-sculptural relief. The cypress, a tree the artist associated with the Mediterranean landscape, serves as a dramatic vertical counterpoint to the horizontal sweep of the fields. He was so satisfied with the result that he produced two additional studio versions and a reed-pen drawing based on the original composition.