Wheat Field with Cornflowers

Vincent van Gogh

Contemporary-Art.org
Keywords: WheatFieldCornflowers

Work Overview

Wheat Field with Cornflowers
July 1890
Oil on canvas
60 x 81 cm
Beyeler Foundation, Riehen, Switzerland


Van Gogh described Ears of Wheat to painter and friend Paul Gauguin as "nothing more than ears of wheat, green-blue stalks long, ribbon-like leaves, under a sheen of green & pink; ears of wheat, yellowing slightly, with an edge made pale pink by the dusty manner of flowering; at the bottom, a pink bindweed winding round a stalk. I would like to paint portraits against a background that is so lively and yet so still." The painting depicts "the soft rustle of the ears of grain swaying back and forth in the wind." He used the motif as the background to a portrait.[84]


The Fields was painted in July and held in a private collection.[85]


An animated Wheatfield with Cornflowers shows the effect of a gust of wind that ripples through the yellow stalks, seeming to "overflow" into the blue background. The heads of a few stalks of wheat seem to have detached themselves, diving into the blue of the hills in the background.