Van Gogh finds the dark cypresses with their flaming silhouettes so characteristic of Provence, ‘as regards lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk. And the green has such a distinguished quality. It’s the dark patch in a sun-drenched landscape, but it’s one of the most interesting dark notes, the most difficult to hit off exactly that I can imagine’.
He describes this painting as ‘a group of them [cypresses] in the corner of a wheat field on a summer’s day when the mistral is blowing. ‘enveloped in blue moving in great circulating currents of air’. It is one of his most impasto works. The trees are made up of curly, flame-like brushstrokes and all the surrounding vegetation is also full of life, as though the mistral is raging violently.
Van Gogh finds the dark cypresses with their flaming silhouettes so characteristic of Provence, ‘as regards lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk. And the green has such a distinguished quality. It’s the dark patch in a sun-drenched landscape, but it’s one of the most interesting dark notes, the most difficult to hit off exactly that I can imagine’.
He describes this painting as ‘a group of them [cypresses] in the corner of a wheat field on a summer’s day when the mistral is blowing. ‘enveloped in blue moving in great circulating currents of air’. It is one of his most impasto works. The trees are made up of curly, flame-like brushstrokes and all the surrounding vegetation is also full of life, as though the mistral is raging violently.
