A storm is brewing, the deep blue sky churns, and a flock of crows rises over a golden wheatfield, where three paths diverge and lead nowhere in particular. Van Gogh painted it a few weeks before his death; often wrongly called his last work, it is among the most powerful paintings of his final months.
Key facts
- Artist
- Vincent van Gogh1853–1890 · Dutch
- Date
- July 1890
- Period
- Post-Impressionism1886–1905
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 50.5 × 103 cm
- Location
- Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, Netherlands
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#075088#CCA617#937229#C49C4C#5097C8Background
In May 1890 Van Gogh left the asylum at Saint-Rémy for the village of Auvers-sur-Oise north of Paris, under the care of Dr Paul Gachet. In the last seventy days of his life he painted some seventy canvases — almost one a day.
In early July he wrote to his brother Theo that he had painted several “vast fields of wheat under troubled skies”, and that he “did not need to go out of my way to try to express sadness and extreme loneliness”; yet he added that the canvases would also show “what I consider healthy and fortifying about the countryside”.
On 27 July 1890 Van Gogh shot himself in the fields and died two days later, aged thirty-seven. The painting is now in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Technique & composition
In Auvers Van Gogh often used this wide, double-square canvas, which makes the field seem to stretch endlessly sideways. is swept with heavy strokes of deep blue, while is built from short strokes in every direction, as if tossing in a gale.
Two pairs of complementary colours — blue and yellow, red and green — clash violently. is set off by , while are just a few black V-shaped strokes, yet they fill the scene with movement.
Details
Symbolism
Paths to nowhere
Three paths break off in the wheat; none leads into the distance. Many read them as the painter's uncertainty about the way ahead, though Van Gogh himself left no explanation.
Crows and storm
Crows are often seen as omens of death, and the stormy sky adds to the unease. Yet for Van Gogh wheatfields also stood for the cycle of life and harvest. The picture carries both anxiety and vitality.
Stories
- Did you know?
Many films and biographies call this Van Gogh's last painting. From his letters researchers conclude that he painted several more afterwards, such as Tree Roots, so the “final work” story is a romantic myth.
- Did you know?
are swirled on in thick paint and stand out sharply against the deep blue, like a glimmer of light.
Legacy
Wheatfield with Crows, expressing emotion through intense colour and brushwork, is a key forerunner of . It is also the image most often used to evoke Van Gogh's tragic life, appearing in countless films and biographies.
