Research

    Landscape task  

I was asked to look at two different pieces of landscape art and discuss them. A traditional landscape piece and a piece of land art. The traditional piece of landscape art I have chosen Is the Wheat field with cypresses painting series by Vincent Van Gogh created in 1889, in particular the 2nd piece which hangs in the national gallery, pictured below. 

On the surface, this painting shows a vast wheat field with tall cypresses to the left, framed by blue mountains and shrubs, a landscape completely devoid of people. However this piece was created while Vincent Van Gogh was a patient in a psychiatric hospital, this piece was a depiction of the view from his window painted after he was confined to his room after a relapse. This painting and many of Van Gogh’s wheat field paintings have a deeper meaning to them, a message about the circle of life and our delicate relationship with nature. This can be seen through the focus on cypresses in his landscape paintings as they have a traditional symbolism of everlasting life. Van Gogh also said this himself in a letter to his sister, quoted from the national gallery,  “ what else can one do but gaze upon the wheat fields. Their story is ours, for we who live on bread, are we not ourselves wheat to a considerable extent” 

This piece really fascinates me as I am not usually a huge fan of landscape paintings, I find them repetitive. However, I was first drawn to this piece for liking Van Gogh stylistic approach, the way he saw the many colours in the clouds and the spirals in the sky. But I found myself more astonished by this painting and the artist himself when finding out the paintings timeline and back story. Van Gogh has painted this landscape in such beauty, taken the time to capture all the different shades of gold in the wheat, their motion in the wind, but at this time he was going through such mental anguish and pain yet created something so picturesque and that’s why I find it so fascinating, the way he saw complete beauty in the world and depicted it through his paintings despite his mental pain and societal challenges.