[2] In an earlier letter to his brother Theo, van Gogh wrote that cypresses were "always occupying [his] thoughts" and that he found them "beautiful of line" and proportioned like an Egyptian obelisk.

[1] The orientation of the night sky objects may have been influenced by a conjunction of heavenly bodies on 20 April 1890, when Mercury and Venus were at 3 degrees of separation and together had luminescence comparable to Sirius.

[6] According to Kathleen Powers Erickson, Road with Cypress and Star more strongly reflects van Gogh's belief that he would soon die than the earlier painting The Starry Night.

[2] She supports this by comparing the evening star on the left of the painting, which is barely visible, to the emerging crescent moon on the right side; the cypress tree in the middle, which divides these symbols of the old and the new, is described as an "obelisk of death".

[1] The evening star and crescent moon on either side of the tree she describes as adding "cosmic perspective to the earthly scene" and suggesting a "sentient universe filled with love".