Wheat Field with Cypresses (National Gallery version)

During the summer of 1889, Vincent van Gogh painted this golden field while living at an asylum in Saint-Rémy, in the south of France. He had chosen to stay there after a rough stretch, and the countryside around him became a steady source of inspiration. The tall cypress tree dominating the right side really captured his imagination. In a letter to his brother Theo, he compared these trees to Egyptian obelisks, admiring their shape and proportion, and that admiration comes through in the way the dark green cypress rises like a flame toward the sky.

Everything in the picture seems caught in motion. Wheat bends and shimmers in the foreground, clouds spin across the top in thick curls, and the blue hills in the distance ripple like water. Van Gogh created this restless feeling with bold, heavy brushstrokes piled onto the canvas, a signature of his Post-Impressionist approach. This version is one of three he made of the very same view, each one his attempt to hold onto a moment when the whole landscape felt charged with wind and life.