In our world today, paintings depicting aesthetically pleasing scenes from nature such as Greco-Roman gods and goddesses or idyllic landscapes by the great Romantic artists are seen as quite popular among art aficionados. Those images might remind us of a world which is comfortable and tidy, where everything was structured like heavenly hierarchies with some kind of logic or at least equilibrium within the chains of command. In contrast, in the painting Wheat Field with crows, painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1890, nature is dissonant.
The Meaning Behind Van Gogh’s Wheat Fields
When Van Gogh drew Wheat Fields Near Auvers in 1890, the color he used most prominently was blue. Prior to painting this work, Van Gogh painted works using prominently yellow and red hues. To represent the sadness of entering into death, Van Gogh created this work with predominantly blues and greens in a slowly descending field.
Van Gogh’s Wheat Fields might be one of Van Gogh’s most recognizable paintings because it belongs to the more successful end of his achievement as an artist. There are many theories about the painting, with most believing that the painting is about how people never really understand life. Some evidence for this is that in the painting there are five different types of wheat and all five can be used for bread-a sign that there will always be something to eat. There is also a suggestion that it could represent human potential and how mankind can either choose darkness or light.
Whose happy harvest is Van Gogh celebrating?
The Rijksmuseum created an augmented-reality art piece in celebration of the painter’s incredible talent with two distinct paintings. The first painting is a representation of Van Gogh’s Wheat Fields, and then the new painting appears to be hidden amidst the wheat fields as if you are seeing it from inside. On top of being 2D art on a 3D surface, each color is individually projected onto the canvas by LEDs behind the artwork. In this painting, Van Gogh could also potentially be celebrating his own harvest and hope for his own happiness.
At first, people assumed that Van Gogh’s Wheat Fields were an act of self-portraits or a representation of what he saw. Fine Art historians now agree that this painting is celebrating the harvest season in a southern region of France called Provence. The color blue, which is prominent near the tree line, was around for the celebration wearing straw hats, next to friends and family.
Van Gogh opted to paint an elevated level “Ravine”, as opposed to a lower ground ravine, because it captured his imagination with infinite depth and also showed sun rays beaming out of the sky onto the wheat.
Van Gogh’s painting “Wheat Fields” is representative of the changes that had been taking place all around Europe in the 19th Century; the industrial revolution and the development of farming. Rather than focus on harvesting the wheat, Van Gogh pays more attention to the way in which farmers work; bundling up sheaves and tying them together with string. The idea of harvesting being mechanised was spreading around Europe- and Van Gogh has captured this with a broken down plough to one side of the picture, beside a small group of peasants standing talking.
Is the wheat in Van Gogh’s paintings symbolic of death?
Experts often debate the meaning of Van Gogh’s paintings, and how they related to his mental health. “Wheat Field with Crows,” an 1889 wheat field painting by van Gogh, was thought to be symbolic of death because crows were considered harbingers of death in Japan. Anatoly Kerem has studied the history of art and although he is unclear about whether or not Van Gogh endorsed the idea that crow is companion for death, due to its namesake, Kerem does believe the great detail in portraying grains of wheat supports this viewpoint.
The wheat in Van Gogh’s paintings is thought to symbolize life, but the artist himself did not intend for it to represent anything specific. He told his friend Émile Bernard while they were on a walk that “it seems especially important to me that plain country people who live far from art and books should find something in my canvases that speaks to them also.”
What does Van Gogh mean by “that magical halo of a moonlit night!”
In Van Gogh’s painting Wheat Field under Moonlight, one of the most interesting characteristics is the depiction of the night sky. What is that mysterious glimmer of something in the sky? It is indeed a moonlit night! The “halo” around the sun suggests that this painting might have been created during an equinox, where both day and at night have approximately 12 hours.
Van Gogh centers the painting on this “magical halo of a moonlit night,” with patches of darkness scattered around the landscape and what may be a town in the far distance. This moonlit scene is hardly recognizable as a wheat field, yet it is for Van Gogh to depict as he wishes. The meaning concealed within his choice of subject matter can’t be pinned down easily, but rather allows for several interpretations.
“But I never intended the moonshine alone to make this picture,” Van Gogh once said. “Oh no! It is the whole combination of things which makes that magical halo of a moonlit night!”
Conclusion
Van Gogh suffered from depression, resulting in his mental instability. He focused on the things that suffered or were being neglected at the time. Depictions of fields of wheat are a representation of his strong connection to nature and his love for farming and Dutch peasant culture.
The point Van Gogh is trying to get across through this painting, is that importance of being in the moment. The field and sky are beautiful and similar, but he wants the viewer to feel more grounded by how the subject is centered. He also wants them to be able to let their imagination run wild while they are next to a physical manifestation of vastness. It’s really up to the viewer how they want to look at it: do they want be overwhelmed by how vast this Earth can be, with views that resemble van Gogh’s paintings? Do they want a moment in time where they don’t have distractions and deeply feel this beauty?
