1890, Vincent van Gogh, Cypresses and Two Women -- Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam)
From the Van Gogh museum label: Everything in this southern landscape is in motion: the branches of the cypresses twist in the wind, the wheat undulates, and the clouds drift by. Van Gogh let his brushstrokes follow the direction of the subject that he was depicting. The emphasis on form and line is what made this a modern work of art in his eyes. The cypresses towering above the two women represent man's insignificance in the face of the grandness of nature.
From the Metropolitan Museum (special exhibition) label: Van Gogh took the time in February 1890, before he parted with the full-scale version of the picture (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo), to make this smaller oil. He gave compact, powerful form to the "group of [cypresses] in the corner of a wheat field... when the mistral is blowing." The vigorous, rhythmic brushwork captures a quintessential Provençal landscape animated by blustery wind and imparts an overall sense of harmony to the scene. This gem of a painting is not a slavish copy but instead a distillation and rethinking of the composition. It highlights what the critic Albert Aurier described as Van Gogh's "continual search for the essential sign of each thing... his great love of nature and of truth-of his truth, the truth for him."
Link to other van Gogh paintings
1890, Vincent van Gogh, Cypresses and Two Women -- Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam)
From the Van Gogh museum label: Everything in this southern landscape is in motion: the branches of the cypresses twist in the wind, the wheat undulates, and the clouds drift by. Van Gogh let his brushstrokes follow the direction of the subject that he was depicting. The emphasis on form and line is what made this a modern work of art in his eyes. The cypresses towering above the two women represent man's insignificance in the face of the grandness of nature.
From the Metropolitan Museum (special exhibition) label: Van Gogh took the time in February 1890, before he parted with the full-scale version of the picture (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo), to make this smaller oil. He gave compact, powerful form to the "group of [cypresses] in the corner of a wheat field... when the mistral is blowing." The vigorous, rhythmic brushwork captures a quintessential Provençal landscape animated by blustery wind and imparts an overall sense of harmony to the scene. This gem of a painting is not a slavish copy but instead a distillation and rethinking of the composition. It highlights what the critic Albert Aurier described as Van Gogh's "continual search for the essential sign of each thing... his great love of nature and of truth-of his truth, the truth for him."
Link to other van Gogh paintings