Wheat Field with Cypresses

Van Gogh’s *Wheat Field with Cypresses* is one of those paintings that feels like it’s vibrating, you know? The cypress trees twist upward like dark flames against a sky that’s more alive than any sky has a right to be. He painted it in 1889, during his stay at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, where the Provençal landscape became both his refuge and his obsession. The wheat field isn’t just a field—it’s a rolling sea of brushstrokes, each one restless, like the artist couldn’t quite keep his hand still long enough to let the paint settle.
The cypress trees, though—they’re the real protagonists here. Van Gogh was fixated on them, calling them “the beautiful black note in the sunny landscape.” They’re not just trees; they’re these towering, almost sentinel-like forms, their curves echoing the swirls in his later *Starry Night*. You can trace his influences here, too—the way Japanese prints flattened perspective, or how Monticelli’s thick impasto left its mark on his technique. But what’s striking is how little any of that matters when you’re actually looking at the painting. It’s all just… van Gogh. The private collection that holds it now keeps it out of the public eye more often than not, which feels like a shame—this is a painting that demands to be seen in person, where the texture of the paint could almost cut your fingers if you got too close.
Funny thing is, he painted multiple versions of this scene. There’s one in the Met, another at the National Gallery in London—same composition, but each with its own quirks of light and mood. The private collection version might be the wildest of the bunch, though, with a sky that’s practically boiling over. It’s as if he was trying to cram the entire force of a Provençal summer into one canvas. And somehow, he did.