Arles: View from the Wheat Fields

Arles: View from the Wheat Fields

Artist	Vincent van Gogh
Year	June 1888
Location	Musée Rodin (F545), Paris

Arles: View from the Wheat Fields (also known as Wheat Field with Sheaves and Arles in the Background) was painted by Vincent van Gogh in June, 1888, among a number of paintings he made of wheat fields that summer. It is currently displayed at the Musee Rodin in Paris, France.

Arles

Van Gogh was about 35 years of age when he moved to Arles in southern France. There he was at the height of his career, producing some of his best work. His paintings represented different aspects of ordinary life, such as Harvest at La Crau. The sunflower paintings, some of the most recognizable of Van Gogh's paintings, were created in this time. He worked continuously to keep up with his ideas for paintings. This was also likely one of Van Gogh's happier periods of life. He was confident, clear-minded and seemingly content.^[1]

His work during this period represents a culmination of influences, such as Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism and Japanese art (see Japonism) from his period in Paris the prior two years. His style evolved into one with vivid colors and energetic, impasto brush strokes.^[2]

Wheat fields

The close association of peasants and the cycles of nature particularly interested Van Gogh, such as the sowing of seeds, harvest and sheaves of wheat in the fields.^[3] Van Gogh saw plowing, sowing and harvesting symbolic to man's efforts to overwhelm the cycles of nature: "the sower and the wheat sheaf stood for eternity, and the reaper and his scythe for irrevocable death." The dark hours conducive to germination and regeneration are depicted in The Sower and wheat fields at sunset.^[3]

In 1889 Van Gogh wrote of the way in which wheat was symbolic to him: "What can a person do when he thinks of all the things he cannot understand, but look at the fields of wheat... We, who live by bread, are we not ourselves very much like wheat... to be reaped when we are ripe."^[4]

Harvest paintings

During the last half of June he worked on a group of ten "Harvest" paintings,^[2] which allowed him to experiment with color and technique. "I have now spent a week working hard in the wheatfields, under the blazing sun," Van Gogh wrote on 21 June 1888 to his brother Theo.^[5] He described the series of wheat fields as "…landscapes, yellow—old gold—done quickly, quickly, quickly, and in a hurry just like the harvester who is silent under the blazing sun, intent only on the reaping."^[6]

Painting description

Arles: View from the Wheat Fields^[7] represents the harvest. In the foreground are sheaves of harvested wheat leaning against one another. The center of the painting depicts the harvesting process,^[8] a couple at work in a sea of yellow and ochre. Across the horizon is the town of Arles.^[9] Van Gogh described the series of wheat fields as "…landscapes, yellow—old gold—done quickly, quickly, quickly, and in a hurry just like the harvester who is silent under the blazing sun, intent only on the reaping."^[10] Van Gogh used landscape-format for all of his Wheat Fields paintings, the one exception was this painting which was made in portrait-format.^[9]

References

↑ Morton, M; Schmunk, P (2000). The Arts Entwined: Music and Painting in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Garland Publishing. pp. 177–178. ISBN 0-8153-3156-8.
1 2 "Wheat Field". Collection. Honolulu Academy of Art. Retrieved March 31, 2011.
1 2 van Gogh, V; van Heugten, S; Pissarro, J; Stolwijk, C (2008). Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night. Brusells: Mercatorfonds with Van Gogh Museum and Museum of Modern Art. pp. 12, 25. ISBN 978-0-87070-736-0.
↑ "Landscape at Saint-Rémy (Enclosed Field with Peasant)". Collection. 2010. Retrieved March 31, 2011.
↑ "Wheat Fields". Collection. Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
↑ "Effects of the Sun in Provence" (PDF). National Gallery of Art Picturing France (1830-1900). Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art: 18.
↑ "Arles: View from the Wheat Fields". Van Gogh Paintings. Van Gogh Gallery. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
↑ ten-Doesschate Chu, P (2006) [2002]. Nineteenth-Century European Art. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. p. 436. ISBN 0-13-188643-6.
1 2 Beaujean, D (2000). Van Gogh: Life and Work. Cologne: Konemann. ISBN 3-8290-2938-1.
↑ "Effects of the Sun in Provence" (PDF). National Gallery of Art Picturing France (1830-1900). Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art: 18.

Vincent van Gogh
General	Biography Chronology Health Death Posthumous fame Cultural depictions List of works Post-Impressionism Auberge Ravoux Café du Tambourin The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Family	Theo van Gogh Wil van Gogh Johanna van Gogh-Bonger Andries Bonger Theo van Gogh (film director) Anton Mauve Johannes Stricker
Friends	Émile Bernard Eugène Boch Anna Boch Fernand Cormon Paul Gachet Paul Gauguin John Peter Russell Agostina Segatori Anthon van Rappard
Groups of works	Self portraits Portraits Early works Lost early works Sien Peasant Character Studies Cottages Van Gogh's family in his art Montmartre Outskirts of Paris Still life paintings, Paris Le Moulin de la Galette Asnières Seine Wheat Fields Flowering Orchards Almond Blossoms Langlois Bridge at Arles Saintes-Maries Paintings of Children Décoration for the Yellow House The Roulin Family Hospital in Arles Butterflies Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy The Enclosed Wheat Field at Saint-Rémy Trees and Undergrowth Copies by Vincent van Gogh Olive Trees Display at Les XX, 1890 Auvers size 30 canvases Auvers Double-squares and Squares Japonaiserie Sunflowers Still life paintings, Netherlands Meadows near Rijswijk and the Schenkweg Houses at Auvers
Paintings	Boy Cutting Grass with a Sickle Beach at Scheveningen in Stormy Weather The 'Laakmolen' near The Hague Girl in White in the Woods Lying Cow A Girl in the Street, Two Coaches in the Background Cows in the Meadow Farmhouses Among Trees Bulb Fields Drawbridge in Nieuw-Amsterdam Old Church Tower at Nuenen Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen Cart with Black Ox Cart with Red and White Ox Avenue of Poplars in Autumn Still Life with Straw Hat The Potato Eaters Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette Vase with Red Poppies Poppy Flowers Wheat Field with a Lark View of Paris from Vincent's Room in the Rue Lepic Portrait of Père Tanguy A Woman Walking in a Garden Imperial Fritillaries in a Copper Vase Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin Landscape with Snow La Mousmé The Zouave The Night Café The Yellow House Van Gogh's Chair Café Terrace at Night Starry Night Over the Rhône Portrait of the Artist's Mother Bedroom in Arles Falling Autumn Leaves L'Arlésienne The Red Vineyard Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles) Les Arènes Interior of a Restaurant in Arles A Lane near Arles View of Arles, Flowering Orchards Arles: View from the Wheat Fields Sunset at Montmajour Crab on its Back Two Crabs La Berceuse Irises The Starry Night Self-portrait (1889) Self-portrait without beard Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear A Meadow in the Mountains: Le Mas de Saint-Paul Enclosed Field with Peasant Green Wheat Field with Cypress Ivy Farmhouse in Provence Road with Cypress and Star At Eternity's Gate Thatched Cottages and Houses Portrait of Dr. Gachet Doctor Gachet's Garden in Auvers Houses at Auvers White House at Night Girl in White The Church at Auvers Daubigny's Garden Farms near Auvers The Town Hall at Auvers Blossoming Chestnut Branches Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat View of the Asylum and Chapel of Saint-Rémy Wheatfield with Crows Tree Roots Still Life: Vase with Pink Roses
Other works	Drawings, water-colours and prints 87 Hackford Road Church Pew with Worshippers Portrait of a Man in a Top Hat Sorrow Marsh with Water Lilies Torso of Venus and a Landscape Old Vineyard with Peasant Woman
Public collections	Van Gogh Museum Kröller-Müller Museum Musée d'Orsay National Gallery (London)
Portrayals	Lust for Life (1934 novel 1956 film) Van Gogh (1948 film) Van Gogh (1956 opera) "Vincent" (1971 song) Vincent (1987 film) Vincent & Theo (1990 film) Vincent (1990 opera) Van Gogh (1991 film) Vincent in Brixton (2003 play) "Vincent and the Doctor" (2010 TV episode) Loving Vincent (2017 film)
Cataloguers	Jacob Baart de la Faille (1928 and 1970; "F") Jan Hulsker (1978, revised 1989; "JH")

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