In May 1890, Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, where he stayed until he took his own life two months later.
Green Wheat Fields, Auvers was painted during these final months in Auvers. In this village just north of Paris, Van Gogh painted the Romanesque church, the town hall, and some of the picturesque thatched-roof houses. As he did in the countryside surrounding Arles and Saint-Rémy, he also painted more or less “pure” landscapes.
This work is indeed singular in that there is no legible motif beyond the grassy field, road, and sky; no farmers or horse-driven carts; no rural structures. Instead, pure flora is whipped up by the wind. Two-thirds of the composition consists of the field in a rich range of greens and blues, punctuated by outbursts of yellow flowers. As in the paintings he completed in the countryside surrounding Arles and Saint- Rémy, here Van Gogh painted a “pure” landscape.
The artist wrote of his return to northern France as a kind of homecoming, a peaceful restoration of his mental state in which the vibrant, hot colors of the south were replaced by cool, gentle hues in green and blue.
In Green Wheat Fields, Auvers, Van Gogh’s energetic strokes describe the movement of grassy stalks in the breeze, their patterned undulations creating a woven integral form anchored at the right by a juncture of field, road, and sky. There, the turbulent vibrations are held in place, just barely. Overhead, clouds spin. Van Gogh’s long calligraphic brushstrokes applied in thick impasto, creating a textured surface like that in his best-loved paintings.
Through his dynamic touch and vivid, rich color, Van Gogh expresses the intense freshness of the countryside.