Wheat Field with Cypresses by Vincent Van Gogh Playing Cards

Wheat Field with Cypresses by Vincent Van Gogh, oil on canvas 1889, is a landscape painting of a brilliantly coloured field under a swirling sky of blue, grey and white clouds, with a pair of cypress trees growing upwards into the air like dark flames. Van Gogh painted many views of cypress trees while when committed in the asylum in Saint-Remy in the south of France after a breakdown, in the period of his famous Starry Night series. Painted in expressive, emphatic strokes of swirling impasto oil paint, the picture captures the inner life and rhythms of sky, plants, hills, trees and soil, in a striking example of the mature, Post-Impressionist style that Van Gogh developed in the years before his untimely death. Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890) was a Dutch painter of the Post-Impressionist movement known for bold, expressive drawing, swirling brushstrokes and intense, heightened colours. In early adulthood Van Gogh worked as an art dealer, teacher and pastor before taking up the full time study of drawing and painting in his late twenties. Influenced by Rembrandt, the 19th century Realists and Barbizon school, Van Gogh’s early paintings featured studies of workers and peasants in sombre earth tones. Moving to France in 1886, Van Gogh met with the startling innovations of the Impressionist painters and began to apply their approach to colour and subject matter, which continued into the mature style for which the artist is most renowned. Van Gogh produced many hundreds of drawings and paintings including portraits, landscapes, still life and flower paintings, and numerous self-portraits that became a dominating influence on the modern art of the 20th century and made him one of the most popular artists of all time.