VAN GOGH MUSEUM, Wheatfield With Crows

Wheatfield with Crows, the masterpiece that generally brings the visit to the Museum to an end, is Van Gogh’s true artistic testament. It is the artist’s most dramatic work, for it was in this very field that he shot himself in the chest with a revolver, just a few months after completing the painting. Whether he actually intended to kill himself remains a matter of debate.

In the painting, both nature and the landscape appear deformed and agitated, with ominous elements such as the gloomy black crows, sketched with a few sharp brushstrokes, flying over the field. Van Gogh did not mix the colors on the palette, and each brushstroke is clearly recognizable and sharply defined, leaving a very clear, heavy trace of paint on the canvas. The electric yellow of the wheat stands out against the brown of the earth and the dark blue of the sky, as if each element were battling against one another.

The work was painted in 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise, a little country town 30 kilometers from Paris, where Vincent had moved to be treated by Doctor Gachet, a specialist in mental illnesses. In the last two months of his life, Van Gogh seemed to realize the end was near, and began painting with a frantic, desperate energy; instead of calming his anguish, however, painting simply worsened the tension....