IDENTITY
Letter 898 — Wheatfields, expressive landscape and extreme loneliness
Auvers, 1890
Content Summary
In Auvers, Van Gogh describes large wheatfield canvases under turbulent skies in which he deliberately seeks to express sadness and extreme loneliness through landscape.
CONTEXT
Topics
Expressive Colour, Expressive Landscape, Artistic Intention, Working Method, Auvers, Wheatfields
Materials & Pigments
Related People
Vincent van Gogh, Theo van Gogh, Jo van Gogh-Bonger
Paintings
RESEARCH
Quotation
they’re immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies, and I made a point of trying to express sadness, extreme loneliness
Research Focus
The passage provides direct evidence that Van Gogh conceived landscape as capable of carrying an explicitly emotional meaning through pictorial means rather than merely recording a place.
Related Work / Relevance
SOURCES & EVIDENCE
Source Type
Letter
Source
Source Edition
Vincent van Gogh — The Letters, scholarly online edition (Van Gogh Museum / Huygens ING; website version December 2024)
Source URL
Evidence Type
Primary Source, Artwork Documentation, Scholarly Annotation
Related Readings