Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 4

Art - Essay Example Reproductions of his work appear on posters, calendars, mouse pads, and other widespread consumer items. Even those works not immediately known today are quickly recognized by his unique style and approach, such as his painting Wheatfield with Cypress. Wheatfield with Cypress is an example of Van Gogh’s work while he was a resident at Saint-Remy hospital for the mentally unstable. It is a member of a series of paintings in which Van Gogh explored an image or a theme. Whether it was this painting or another one of the series, he wrote to Theo that the trees â€Å"are always occupying my thoughts, I should like to make something of them like the canvases of the sunflowers, because it astonishes me that they have not yet been done as I see them. The tree is as beautiful of line and proportion as an Egyptian obelisk. And the green has a quality of such distinction. It is a splash of black in a sunny landscape, but it is one of the most interesting black notes, and the most difficult to hit off exactly that I can imagine† (cited in Wallace, 1969: 144). His fascination with the trees themselves as well as their contribution to the landscape overall is evident within this painting. The image depicts an initially confusing scene. The brightly lit landscape is covered by a swirling mass of clouds in a sky that seems eternally blue. The scene depicts a golden wheatfield not far from the hospital in which Van Gogh stayed in southern France (Wallace, 1969). The field is interrupted by a set of wind-swept green bushes in its center to provide balance and a pair of flame-like cypresses standing proudly to one side. This is backed by small green foothills and then blue-tinged mountains rising to back the cypress trees. In the extreme foreground, a glimpse is given of a spring-green field filled with wild flowers in the bottom right corner. Another vividly green bushy area surrounds the two cypress trees, providing a solid base to the narrow