[3] It also displays the visceral relationship between nature and emotion that is a trademark of van Gogh's later work, as well as the stylistic innovations of a raised horizon line, expressive brushstrokes, and bold colours.

His main correspondences were with his brother Theo van Gogh, to whom he wrote in Paris, and Doctor Paul Gachet, a local homoeopathic practitioner who was interested in Post-Impressionist art and who kept an eye on the artist.

[6] Notably, he painted twelve double-square canvases of the gardens and fields around Auvers in the last ten days of his life, which displayed some of his most innovative techniques in terms of colour and composition.

Van Gogh largely edited out any signs of industrialisation because he was "more interested in finding a new way of painting traditional motifs – whether through achieving a particular effect of light, or through the expressive use of colour – than recording the encroachment of modern life".

[10] The new location also inspired shifts in artistic technique, as van Gogh explored a heightened palette of bright greens and yellows, expressive brushwork, and innovative compositions, creating some of his most daring works.

Originally a "peasant painter" who emulated the Dutch greats, van Gogh shifted from dark, sombre hues to embracing the vibrant colours of the Post-Impressionist movement.

[5] Once he moved to France, van Gogh drew inspiration from the works of innovators such as Monet, Pissarro, and Seurat, and began to experiment with brushstroke and colour, emulating the Impressionist and Pointillist styles in his paintings.

The image has a limitless, panoramic depth due to the artist's "diametrically opposed compositional approach, an exaggerated wide-angle effect from an elevated vantage point, giving a remarkably broad view over the landscape.

"[12] Van Gogh's use of perspective and cropping became bolder and more innovative as he progressed as an artist, especially noteworthy because Landscape at Auvers in the Rain is one of his final works, showing that he continued to evolve the entirety of his career.

This leaves the viewer with the saturated, abstracted features of the sky, hills, town, and fields without a context, forcing them to confront van Gogh's intense brushstrokes and colours.

[9] Naomi Margolis Maurer emphasises the spiritual and psychological resonance of van Gogh's illustration of the storm, noting that "van Gogh's association of wheat with humanity [leads to] his vision of the endlessly rolling landscape as a manifestation of infinity and eternity ... for him, these vast fields of grain represented the vulnerable existence of mankind, and the storm epitomized those fateful, uncontrollable, but passing catastrophes which sweep through people's lives".

[14] Van Gogh's choice of subject matter reflects his own personal struggles with human catastrophe, as he battled mental illness and self-doubt amid his desire to create great art.

[14] Therefore, the wheatfields and crows that surround the town have a deeper meaning, reflecting the cyclical nature of life, sadness, and death, important themes that van Gogh contemplated throughout his career as an artist.

Critics have noted that in this work van Gogh "celebrated the landscape in its own language, echoing the action of rain and wind, growth and decay, rather than observing the refined conventions of the Western painting tradition", revealing the artist's tendency to distort reality to create a more expressive representation of his personal feelings.

[14] These colouristic choices and bold brushstrokes are characteristic of the Post-Impressionist style, as this movement rejected the "concern for the naturalistic depiction of light and color in favor of an emphasis on abstract qualities or symbolic content".

Notably, van Gogh took direct inspiration for this patterned conception of a storm from a print by Utagawa Hiroshige titled Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake.

Van Gogh's efforts to create a new type of landscape are reflected in his own words; in a letter to Theo at the end of his life he stated that he could "see from afar the possibility of a new painting", noting that "before such nature I feel powerless".

Van Gogh wrote to Theo that nature was a refuge from his troubles, and specifically, "when suffering is sometimes so great it fills the whole horizon that it takes on the proportions of a hopeless deluge ... it is better to look at a wheat field, even in the form of a picture.

"[14] To certain critics, his use of the bright yellows to signify the wheat-filled countryside was a symbol of comfort for van Gogh in his distress because "it embodied the ongoing process of life, the irrelevance of the individual's fate in the overall beauty and harmony of the divine order".