The Wheat Field

All of them depict the view Van Gogh had from the window of his bedroom on the top floor of the asylum: a field enclosed by stone walls just beneath his window and excluded from normal life by the rear wall of the asylum grounds; beyond this enclosure farm land, accompanied by olive groves and vineyards, ran up to the hills at the foot of the mountain range called Les Alpilles.

From May 1889 to May 1890, Van Gogh recorded this view in changing settings: after a storm, with a reaper in the field, with fresh wheat raising in autumn and with flowers in the spring.

This is one of Van Gogh's major series from Saint-Rémy, comprising works such as the Wheat Field at Sunrise in the Kröller-Müller Museum.

Van Gogh included the Enclosed Field with Rising Sun (F737) made in December 1889 in his Display at Les XX 1890 in Brussels.

Towards the end of his life he regarded his most delicate works, a young wheat field with the rising sun or a blooming orchard, as his "babies".

[6] Van Gogh describes Mountainous Landscape Behind Saint-Rémy, also made in June, as a view taken in the hills seen from his bedroom window: "In the foreground, a field of wheat ruined and hurled to the ground by a storm.

Referring to a Biblical metaphor, Van Gogh wrote of the meaning of this painting, "In this reaper – a vague figure laboring like the devil in the terrible heat to finish his task – I saw an image of death, in the sense that the wheat being reaped represented mankind...

He explained to his brother Theo, "I see in this reaper – an undefined figure, struggling in the intense heat like the devil to finish his work – I see him as an image of death in the sense that the humans are the corn that is being cut down.

[18] The work, started in late November, shows a sunrise above a field of young wheat in the complementary colors of yellow-green and purple.

Janson describes: "the field is like a stormy sea; the trees spring flamelike from the ground; and the hills and clouds heave with the same surge of motion.

"[24] There is also another version of Wheat Fields with Cypresses made in September with a blue-green sky, reportedly held at the Tate Gallery in London (F743).

At the end of the field there is a little house with a tall somber cypress which stands out against the far-off hills with their violet-like and bluish tones, and against a sky the color of forget-me-nots with pink streaks, whose pure hues form a contrast with the scorched ears, which are already heavy, and have the warm tones of a bread crust.

[28] In November, Wheat Field Behind Saint-Paul was painted by Van Gogh, now owned by Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.