Wheatfield with Crows

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Wheatfield with Crows
Korenveld met kraaien - s0149V1962 - Van Gogh Museum.jpg
Artist Vincent van Gogh
YearJuly 1890
Catalogue
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions50.2 cm× 103 cm(19.8 in× 41 in)
Location Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Wheatfield with Crows (Dutch : Korenveld met kraaien) is a July 1890 painting by Vincent van Gogh. It has been cited by several critics as one of his greatest works. [1] [2]

Contents

It is commonly stated that this was van Gogh's final painting. This association was popularized by Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 biopic Lust for Life , which depicts van Gogh painting it immediately before shooting himself. His final painting in actuality was Tree Roots . [3] The evidence of his letters suggests that Wheatfield with Crows was completed around 10 July and predates such paintings as Auvers Town Hall on 14 July 1890 and Daubigny's Garden . [4] [5] [6] Moreover, Jan Hulsker has written that a painting of harvested wheat, Field with Stacks of Wheat (F771), must be a later painting. [7]

Provenance

The Van Gogh Museum's Wheatfield with Crows was painted in July 1890, in the last weeks of van Gogh's life. Many have claimed it as his last painting, while it is likely that Tree Roots was his final painting.

Wheat Field with Crows, made on a double-square canvas, depicts a dramatic, cloudy sky filled with crows over a wheat field. [5] A sense of isolation is heightened by a central path leading nowhere and by the uncertain direction of flight of the crows. The windswept wheat field fills two-thirds of the canvas. Jules Michelet, one of van Gogh's favorite authors, wrote of crows: "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 of so prudent and sage a bird." [8] Kathleen Erickson finds the painting as expressing both sorrow and a sense of his life coming to an end. [9] The crows are used by van Gogh as a symbol of death and rebirth, or of resurrection. [10] [11] The road, in contrasting colors of red and green, is said by Erickson to be a metaphor for a sermon he gave based on Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress where the pilgrim is sorrowful that the road is so long, yet rejoices because the Eternal City waits at the journey's end. [12] [13]

Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds (1890) Vincent van Gogh - Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds - VGM F778.jpg
Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds (1890)

About 10 July 1890 van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo and his wife Jo Bonger, saying that he had painted another three large canvases at Auvers since visiting them in Paris on 6 July. [4] Two of these are described as immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies, thought to be Wheatfield under Clouded Sky and Wheatfield with Crows, and the third is Daubigny's Garden . He wrote that he had made a point of expressing sadness, later adding "extreme loneliness" (de la solitude extrême), but also says he believes the canvases show what he considers healthy and fortifying about the countryside (and adds that he intended to take them to Paris as soon as possible).

Walther and Metzger, in Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings, state that "There is nothing in van Gogh's words to support a simplistic interpretation along the lines of artistic angst and despair – nor is there any evidence for the widely-held belief that it was this painting that van Gogh had on his easel at the time he killed himself." [14] They refer to a June 1880 letter of van Gogh's, in which he compared himself to a bird in a cage, [15] and remark: "The crows in the painting, in other words, were an altogether personal symbol closely associated with van Gogh's own life". [14]

These painting are all examples of van Gogh's elongated double-square canvases, used exclusively by him in the last few weeks of his life, in June and July 1890.

The painting is held in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, as is Wheatfield under Clouded Sky.

Wheatfield with Crows was stolen and quickly recovered in 1991 along with 19 other van Gogh paintings; the painting was "severely damaged" during the heist. [16]

The Indonesian composer Ananda Sukarlan composed a piece with the same title for flute and piano inspired by this and three other paintings, under a cycle titled "The Springs of Vincent".

See also

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent van Gogh</span> Dutch painter (1853–1890)

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, most of which are characterised by bold colours and dramatic brushwork that contributed to the rise of expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's work was beginning to gain critical attention before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot at age 37. During his lifetime, only one of van Gogh's paintings, The Red Vineyard, was sold.

The year 1890 in art involved some significant events.

<i>The Church at Auvers</i> Painting by Vincent van Gogh

The Church at Auvers is an oil painting created by Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh in June 1890 which now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France.

<i>At Eternitys Gate</i> Oil painting by Vincent van Gogh

Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate) is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he made in 1890 in Saint-Rémy de Provence based on an early lithograph. The painting was completed in early May at a time when he was convalescing from a severe relapse in his health some two months before his death, which is generally accepted as a suicide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copies by Vincent van Gogh</span> Series of paintings by Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh made many copies of other people's work between 1887 and early 1890, which can be considered appropriation art. While at Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, where Van Gogh admitted himself, he strived to have subjects during the cold winter months. Seeking to be reinvigorated artistically, Van Gogh did more than 30 copies of works by some of his favorite artists. About twenty-one of the works were copies after, or inspired by, Jean-François Millet. Rather than replicate, Van Gogh sought to translate the subjects and composition through his perspective, color, and technique. Spiritual meaning and emotional comfort were expressed through symbolism and color. His brother Theo van Gogh would call the pieces in the series some of his best work.

A double-square painting is a painting made on uncommonly large canvases, which have one dimension that is twice the size of the other. Vincent van Gogh used 50 cm × 100 cm double-squares almost exclusively during the final weeks of his life in Auvers, in June and July 1890. Other artists who have painted double-square canvases include Charles-François Daubigny, Puvis de Chavannes, and Ivon Hitchens.

<i>Daubignys Garden</i> 1890 paintings by van Gogh

Daubigny's Garden, painted three times by Vincent van Gogh, depicts the enclosed garden of Charles-François Daubigny, a painter whom Van Gogh admired throughout his life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auberge Ravoux</span> Historic landmark in French village of Auvers-sur-Oise

The Auberge Ravoux is a French historic landmark located in the heart of the village of Auvers-sur-Oise. It is known as the House of Van Gogh because the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh spent the last 70 days of his life as a lodger at the auberge. During his stay at Auvers, Van Gogh created more than 80 paintings and 64 sketches before shooting himself in the chest on 27 July 1890 and dying two days later on 29 July 1890. The auberge (inn) has been restored as a museum and tourist attraction. The room where Van Gogh lived and died has been restored and can be viewed by the public.

Wheat Fields is a series of dozens of paintings by Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh, products 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 and dramatic 1888–1890 paintings from Arles, Saint-Rémy and Auvers-sur-Oise in rural France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death of Vincent van Gogh</span> 1890 death of the Dutch painter

The death of Vincent van Gogh occurred in the early morning of 29 July, 1890 in his room at the Auberge Ravoux, in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, after presumably shooting himself two days earlier.

<i>Thatched Cottages and Houses</i> 1890 oil painting by Vincent van Gogh

Thatched Cottages at Cordeville, 1890 or Chaumes de Cordeville à Auvers-sur-Oise is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in May 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.

<i>Tree Roots</i> Painting by Vincent van Gogh

Tree Roots is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in July 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. The painting is an example of the double-square canvases that he employed in his last landscapes.

<i>Landscape with a Carriage and a Train</i> 1890 oil painting by Vincent van Gogh

Landscape with a Carriage and a Train is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in June 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Van Gogh self-portrait (1889)</span> Painting by Vincent van Gogh, musée dOrsay

Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh painted a self-portrait in oil on canvas in September 1889. The work, which may have been Van Gogh's last self-portrait, was painted shortly before he left Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in southern France. The painting is now at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

<i>Houses at Auvers</i> Painting by Vincent van Gogh

Houses at Auvers is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh. It was created towards the end of May or beginning of June 1890, shortly after he had moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town northwest of Paris, France.

<i>Self-portrait without beard</i> Painting by Vincent van Gogh

Self-portrait without beard is an 1889 oil on canvas painting by the Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. The picture, which may have been Van Gogh's last self-portrait, was painted in September that year. The self-portrait is one of the most expensive paintings of all time, selling for $71.5 million in 1998 in New York City. At the time, it was the third most expensive painting ever sold.

<i>Landscape at Auvers in the Rain</i> 1890 painting by Vincent van Gogh

Landscape at Auvers in the Rain is an oil painting on canvas by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.

<i>Reaper</i> (Van Gogh series) 1889 series of three paintings

Reaper, Wheat Field with Reaper, or Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun is the title given to each of a series of three oil-on-canvas paintings by Vincent van Gogh of a man reaping a wheat field under a bright early-morning sun. To the artist, the reaper represented death and "humanity would be the wheat being reaped". However, Van Gogh did not consider the work to be sad but "almost smiling" and taking "place in broad daylight with a sun that floods everything with a light of fine gold".

<i>Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds</i> 1890 painting by Vincent van Gogh

Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds is an 1890 oil painting by Vincent van Gogh. The painting measures 50.4 cm × 101.3 cm. It depicts a relatively flat and featureless landscape with fields of green wheat, under a foreboding dark blue sky with a few heavy white clouds. The horizon divides the work almost into two, with shades of green and yellow below and shades of blue and white above. Since 1973 it has been on permanent loan to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

<i>Poppy Field</i> 1890 painting by Vincent van Gogh

Poppy Field is an 1890 painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, painted around a month before his death during his stay in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. It has been described as "a composition that verges on the abstract" and shows marked difference from a 1888 painting of the same subject that now is in the Van Gogh Museum, in Amsterdam. Spending many years in Germany, the painting now hangs in the Kunstmuseum, in The Hague.

References

  1. ↑ Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-garde. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2006. p. 11. ISBN   1588391957.
  2. ↑ McKenna, Tony (2015). Art, Literature and Culture from a Marxist Perspective. Springer. ISBN   978-1137526618.
  3. ↑ Siegal, Nina (28 July 2020). "A Clue to van Gogh's Final Days Is Found in His Last Painting". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 28 September 2022.
  4. 1 2 "To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Thursday, 10 July 1890". Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum . Retrieved 16 July 2011.
  5. 1 2 "Wheat Field with Crows". Collection. Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 31 March 2011.
  6. ↑ "Auvers-sur-Oise: May – July 1890 (75 paintings)". vggallery.com. Retrieved 29 July 2010.
  7. ↑ Hulsker, Jan (1986). The Complete Van Gogh: Paintings, Drawings, Sketches. Harrison House/Harry N. Abrams. p. 480. ISBN   0-517-44867-X.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  8. ↑ Edwards, C (1989). Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest. Chicago: Loyola Press. pp. 78, 186. ISBN   0-8294-0621-2.
  9. ↑ Erickson, K (1998). At Eternity's Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent Van Gogh. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdsman Publishing. pp. 103, 148. ISBN   0-8028-3856-1.
  10. ↑ Werness, Hope B. (2007). Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in World Art. Continuum International. p. 106. ISBN   978-0-8264-1913-2.
  11. ↑ Rosenblum, Robert (1975), Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko, p.100, New York: Harper & Row, ISBN   0-06-430057-9
  12. ↑ Erickson, K (1998). At Eternity's Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent Van Gogh. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdsman Publishing. pp. 162–163. ISBN   0-8028-3856-1.
  13. ↑ "Van Gogh's First Sunday Sermon: 29 October 1876". vggallery.com. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
  14. 1 2 Walther, Ingo F.; Metzger, Rainer (2010). Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings. Taschen. pp. 680–682. ISBN   978-3-8365-2299-1.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  15. ↑ "To Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, between about Tuesday, 22 and Thursday, 24 June 1880". Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum . Retrieved 17 July 2011.
  16. ↑ Fisher, Marc (15 April 1991). "20 STOLEN VAN GOGHS ARE QUICKLY LOCATED". The Washington Post . Retrieved 29 May 2020.

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