''Wheatfield with Crows'' ( nl, Korenveld met kraaien) is a July 1890 painting by
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...
. It has been cited by several critics as one of his greatest works.
It is commonly stated that this was van Gogh's final painting because Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 biopic “Lust for Life” depicts van Gogh painting it shortly before killing himself. His final painting in actuality was "
Tree Roots
''Tree Roots'' is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in July 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. The painting is an example of the double-square canvases that he employed in his last landscapes.
Background
Van G ...
." The evidence of his letters suggests that ''Wheatfield with Crows'' was completed around 10 July and predates such paintings as ''
Auvers Town Hall on 14 July 1890'' and ''
Daubigny's Garden
''Daubigny's Garden'', painted three times by Vincent van Gogh, depicts the enclosed garden of Charles-François Daubigny, a painter whom Van Gogh admired throughout his life.
Van Gogh started with a small study of a section of the garden. Then ...
''.
Moreover,
Jan Hulsker
Jan Hulsker (2 October 1907, The Hague – 9 November 2002, Vancouver) was a Dutch art historian especially noted for his work on Vincent van Gogh. He studied Dutch literature in Leiden and was promoted with a thesis on the author Aart van der Le ...
has written that a painting of harvested wheat, ''Field with Stacks of Wheat'' (F771), must be a later painting.
Provenance
The
Van Gogh Museum
The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened on ...
's ''Wheatfield with Crows'' was painted in July 1890, in the last weeks of van Gogh's life. Many have claimed it as his last painting, while it is also possible ''
Tree Roots
''Tree Roots'' is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in July 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. The painting is an example of the double-square canvases that he employed in his last landscapes.
Background
Van G ...
'', or the previously mentioned ''Daubigny's Garden'', was his final painting.
''Wheat Field with Crows,'' made on a
double-square canvas, depicts a dramatic, cloudy sky filled with crows over a wheat field.
A sense of isolation is heightened by a central path leading nowhere and by the uncertain direction of flight of the crows. The windswept wheat field fills two-thirds of the canvas.
Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet (; 21 August 1798 – 9 February 1874) was a French historian and an author on other topics whose major work was a history of France and its culture. His aphoristic style emphasized his anti-clerical republicanism.
In Michelet's ...
, one of van Gogh's favorite authors, wrote of crows: "They interest themselves in everything, and observe everything. The ancients, who lived far more completely than ourselves in and with nature, found it no small profit to follow, in a hundred obscure things where human experience as yet affords no light, the directions of so prudent and sage a bird."
Kathleen Erickson finds the painting as expressing both sorrow and a sense of his life coming to an end.
The crows are used by van Gogh as a symbol of death and rebirth, or of resurrection. The road, in contrasting colors of red and green, is said by Erickson to be a metaphor for a sermon he gave based on Bunyan's ''
The Pilgrim's Progress
''The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come'' is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of theological fiction in English literature and a progenitor of ...
'' where the pilgrim is sorrowful that the road is so long, yet rejoices because the Eternal City waits at the journey's end.
![Vincent van Gogh - Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds - VGM F778](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Wheatfield_Under_Thunderclouds_-_VGM_F778.jpg)
About 10 July 1890 van Gogh wrote to his brother
Theo
Theo is a given name and a hypocorism.
Greek origin
Many names beginning with the root "Theo-" derive from the Ancient Greek word ''theos'' (''θεός''), which means god, for example:
*Feminine names: Thea, Theodora, Theodosia, Theophania, ...
and his wife
Jo Bonger, saying that he had painted another three large canvases at
Auvers since visiting them in Paris on 6 July.
Two of these are described as immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies, thought to be ''
Wheatfield under Clouded Sky'' and ''Wheatfield with Crows'', and the third is ''
Daubigny's Garden
''Daubigny's Garden'', painted three times by Vincent van Gogh, depicts the enclosed garden of Charles-François Daubigny, a painter whom Van Gogh admired throughout his life.
Van Gogh started with a small study of a section of the garden. Then ...
''. He wrote that he had made a point of expressing sadness, later adding "extreme loneliness" (''de la solitude extrême''), but also says he believes the canvases show what he considers healthy and fortifying about the countryside (and adds that he intended to take them to Paris as soon as possible).
Walther and Metzger, in ''Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings'', state that "There is nothing in van Gogh's words to support a simplistic interpretation along the lines of artistic ''angst'' and despair – nor is there any evidence for the widely-held belief that it was this painting that van Gogh had on his easel at the time he killed himself."
[ They refer to a June 1880 letter of van Gogh's, in which he compared himself to a bird in a cage, and remark: "The crows in the painting, in other words, were an altogether personal symbol closely associated with van Gogh's own life".]
These painting are all examples of van Gogh's elongated double-square canvases, used exclusively by him in the last few weeks of his life, in June and July 1890.
The painting is held in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum
The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened on ...
in Amsterdam, as is ''Wheatfield under Clouded Sky''.
''Wheatfield with Crows'' was stolen and quickly recovered in 1991 along with 19 other van Gogh paintings; the painting was "severely damaged" during the heist.
See also
*List of works by Vincent van Gogh
List of works by Vincent van Gogh is an incomplete list of paintings and other works by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. The listing is ordered by year and then by catalogue number. While more accurate dating of Van Gogh's work is often difficu ...
* For other paintings of wheat fields by Van Gogh see ''Wheat Fields (Van Gogh series)
''Wheat Fields'' is a series of dozens of paintings by Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh, borne out of his religious studies and sermons, connection to nature, appreciation of manual laborers and desire to provide a means of offeri ...
''.
* For Joan Mitchell's 1987 painting ''No Birds'', a homage to ''Wheatfield with Crows'', see her article Joan Mitchell
Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...
.
Further reading
*Erickson, Kathleen Powers. ''At Eternity's Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent van Gogh'', 1998.
*
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wheatfield With Crows
Paintings by Vincent van Gogh
Paintings of Auvers-sur-Oise by Vincent van Gogh
1890 paintings
Collections of the Van Gogh Museum
Birds in art
Farming in art