Wheat Field With Cypresses
Painted in 1889 by Vincent van Gogh, Wheat Field with Cypresses is a vibrant Post-Impressionist oil on canvas, measuring 73 cm × 93.4 cm and housed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Created during his time in Saint-Rémy, this dynamic landscape features golden wheat fields, swirling skies, and bold cypress trees rendered with Van Gogh’s signature impasto technique. He regarded it as one of his finest summer works and later recreated two additional versions—one for the National Gallery in London and another for his family. The painting powerfully blends nature, color, and emotion in Van Gogh’s inimitable style.
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| Dimensions | Original: 73.2 × 93.4 cm, Small: 58.6 cm × 74.7 cm, Medium: 87.8 cm × 112.1 cm, Large: 102.5 cm × 130.8 cm |
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Price range: $276.00 through $712.00
Vincent van Gogh, one of the most influential figures in Western art history, painted Wheat Field with Cypresses in the summer of 1889 during his stay at the Saint-Rémy-de-Provence asylum in southern France. Measuring approximately 73 cm × 93.4 cm, the painting is executed in oil on canvas and belongs to the Post-Impressionist movement. Today, the original resides at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Cypresses—those tall, dark, flame-shaped trees—had long fascinated Van Gogh. He once wrote to his brother Theo that they were as beautiful and expressive as Egyptian obelisks. By June 1889, he had resolved to make the cypress tree a central theme in one of his first dedicated series of landscapes at Saint-Rémy. Among these, Wheat Field with Cypressesstands out as one of the most ambitious and lyrical.
The painting presents a sweeping Provençal landscape under a swirling blue sky. A golden wheat field undulates in the foreground, interrupted by a cluster of green cypress trees reaching upward like tongues of flame. Rolling hills and pale mountains stretch across the background, their outlines softened by atmospheric light. Van Gogh’s characteristic impastotechnique—where thick layers of paint are applied with expressive, visible brushstrokes—gives the scene a vibrant, tactile quality. His use of bold, rhythmic lines and complementary colors heightens the emotional resonance, transforming a tranquil countryside into a vivid, almost spiritual vision.
Van Gogh valued this composition highly. In a letter to Theo dated July 2, 1889, he included reed-pen drawings of both this horizontal version and a vertical variant, eager to share his new artistic direction. He considered Wheat Field with Cypresses one of his “best” summer landscapes. The work inspired two studio renditions later that year: one of similar size now housed in the National Gallery, London, and a smaller version created as a gift for his mother and sister, which remains in a private collection.
More than a landscape, Wheat Field with Cypresses reflects Van Gogh’s psychological state—his desire for calm, order, and beauty amid the emotional turbulence he often faced. The dynamic brushwork and electric palette give a sense of inner life to nature itself, bridging the outer world and the artist’s internal experience.