Van Gogh’s Wheatfield

Ever since I’ve written about van Gogh’s paintings of starry skies, his other paintings greatly caught my attention. However, this one, called Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds, appeared particularly interesting to me.

This painting, painted in July 1890. (the very same month Vincent van Gogh died), is a part of his wheatfield series painted on double-square canvases. Painted with thick, relief coat, dark and cloudy sky seems threatening and suggests the upcoming sorrow; no black crows here but the lonely landscape does give indication of the depressing state van Gogh was engulfed in those days. With simple setting of the painting, which features only a wheatfield and the sky; no houses, trees or a river there, van Gogh tried to express the loneliness, sadness and alienation he felt at the time.

A letter of around 10. July 1890. says: “There – once back here I set to work again – the brush however almost falling from my hands and – knowing clearly what I wanted I’ve painted another three large canvases since then. They’re immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies, and I made a point of trying to express sadness, extreme loneliness …”

The simplicity of the painting only added depth to it: wilderness with a wheatfield; so lonely and so alone, solitary as long as the view stretches; from the tiny red flowers that grow in the near to the line where the field is mingled with the troubled sky; no landscape could possibly express loneliness better than this, on the first sight, ordinary wheatfield. Just looking at this painting is so inspirational to me; give me such delight and fires my imagination. Also, van Gogh’s emphasis on brush strokes is very appealing to me.