Running Head: Vincent van Gogh Wheatfield with Crows 1

Concordia University

Fall 2017-2018

FFAR 250

Au Chin Yuk

40030376

Final assignment
Vincent van Gogh Wheatfield with Crows 2

Alienation in Wheatfield with Crows

Vincent van Gogh, a world famous artist from the late nineteenth century, is regarded

as a post-impressionistic and early expressionistic artist. His works are full of energy and

very expressive such as Starry Night, Night Café and certainly Wheatfield with Crows. In one

of the letters written by the artist to his younger brother Theo, Van Gogh expressed his

sensitivity in some normal scenes. “Last week, I was at Hampton Court to see the beautiful

gardens and long avenues of horse chestnuts and lime trees, in the tops of which a multitude

of crows and rooks have built their nests” (Letter 70). One could see that the artist was a

sensitive, emotional and passionate person. Every bird, tree, flower or person around him

could stimulate his emotions and thoughts.

When looking at the Wheatfield, it is generally associated with sadness because of the

tragedy that happened after he finished the painting. The general reception of the painting is

related to his personal issues, like the mentally broke down situation, lack of money and

unpopular aesthetic style, which lead to the sadness of the artist. Although personal issues of

the artist could affect his product to a certain extent, still, one cannot directly link the

emotions of the piece to his real-life situation. There should be another linkage between the

piece and the artist, which is more persuasive and show a more direct connection. Thus, by

analyzing the use of colors, lines, treatment of different objects and other formal elements

used in the piece, it could be conjectured that these elements make a more direct connection

with and highlighted the alienation struggled by the artist. In Karl Marx’s view, “so is the

worker's activity not his spontaneous activity. It belongs to another; it is the loss of his self.”

(Marx, 1864, p. 111), alienation means ourselves were alienated from our species-being

under industrialization and capitalism by the process laboring. But in the context of Van

Gogh, we will focus on the more psychology side of it, “Alienation describes an action of

estranging or state of estrangement normally in relation to a breakdown of relations between

Vincent van Gogh Wheatfield with Crows 3

a man or a group […] derived from one form of psychology, a loss of connection with one’s

own deepest feelings and needs” (Raymond William, 1976, p. 33, 36), which is more related

to his inside feelings. Therefore, the art piece could be interpreted as a medium for the artist

to express his intense feeling of alienation from society. One could start with the elements on

the surface like colors and lines to get the first impression of the piece.

The choice of colors suggests a relatively negative and pessimistic emotion to the

audience. The painting is mainly composed of two primary colors, blue for the night sky and

yellow for the wheat field. Blue suggests a somber, melancholy and negative emotion, which

is strengthened by the addition of black in the painting. Yellow is generally associated with

positive, hope and happiness, but the artist chose to use a dull and dim brownish yellow

rather than a golden bright yellow, which could imply a reduced optimism. This overall color

choice suggests a gloomy emotion at first sight, but when we look closer at the details of the

painting we could discover more.

Lines in the painting convey unsteadiness energy inside the artist. One could observe

that all lines in the painting are heavy and zigzag, they are well represented by the heavy and

ever direction changing brush strokes. These lines take on the dynamic and high-energy

characteristics of diagonal lines and convey confusion and nervousness as they change

direction frequently. Moreover, Van Gogh aligned the crows from the center of the picture to

the top right corner; this formed a black diagonal line. Diagonal lines can appear to be either

rising or falling and evoke restless and uncontrolled energy. This kinetic energy created by

the lines suggests tension and instability of the artist. When one looks close enough to the

painting, one could also discover the roughness of the surface. This is mainly due to the

choice of painting materials.

The used of oil paint causes the roughness on the surface, which could be another

suggestion for unstable energy. Oil paint is used in the painting and when it is exposed to air,
Vincent van Gogh Wheatfield with Crows 4

it does not undergo the same evaporative process that water does. Instead, they combine into

a dry semi-solid and can be observed by naked eyes. This specific characteristic causes the

surface texture of the painting to become very rough, which suggests restlessness and

uncontrolled energy. Also, the overall tone of the painting is dark and conveys a negative and

pessimistic impression. In addition to different formal elements, treatment of different objects

also offers a glimpse into his world of alienation and loneliness.

The unbalanced division of space implies an unbalanced mental condition of the artist.

Space of the painting is divided into two objects, the night sky and wheat field, and they do

not share a equal space. The wheat field occupies a slightly larger portion and this creates a

visual unbalance to the work, which suggests unbalance and unstable of energy and creates

tension. This alludes a non-equilibrium mental state of the artist. Besides, if we observe the

painting as a whole, other signs of alienation will be perceived.

An absence of human sign can be observed from the painting, this suggests the artist

was alienated by or self-alienated from society. In February 1888, Van Gogh left Paris, the

art center of the world, for Arles. “The hectic Parisian lifestyle began to get on Vincent’s

nerves, and he left for Arles in the South of France at the beginning of 1888. Now, he missed

the contacts with his artistic friends.” (Van Gogh Museum) He was hoping to escape from the

busy lifestyle and started living alone. In consequence, he left all his friends and family. Two

years later, he drew the Wheatfield. The absence of human sign from his late period works,

the wheat field series, also revealed that he was no longer interested in painting human

objects but rather the beautiful and astonishing nature. Van Gogh has kept a distance from the

society in both physical and mental means. Besides looking at the wheat field, we could also

look into other subject matters of the piece.

The three paths painted by the artist could insinuate loneliness. One can see that there

are three different paths in the painting and they all lead to different directions, certainly the
Vincent van Gogh Wheatfield with Crows 5

number three is not a coincidence, these paths could be interpreted as representative of three

people, his brother Theo, Paul Gauguin and the artist himself respectively. Theo Van Gogh,

his younger brother, supported Van Gogh’s every expense and being a soul mate of the artist.

“I don’t really have any friends except for you, and when I’m ill you’re always in my

thoughts.” (Letter 364) This is one of the many letters written by the artist to his brother,

revealed a brotherly love between them. In the artist’s last days after he got shot, Theo was

the only person who accompanied the artist and he even named his only child after Vincent.

By these facts, we could conclude that Theo is the most important person in Van Gogh’s life.

The second important person to the artist is the painter Paul Gauguin. After Van Gogh started

living alone, he expressed to Theo about the wish to create a community of artists who would

live and paint together “So I’m starting to set up a studio that may at the same time be of use

to our pals, if they come, or if there are painters here.” (Letter 608) Thus, the “Yellow house”

was established in early 1888, a studio for the realization of the community that the artist had

long desired for. In letter 616, a drafted a letter to Gauguin “And that it seems to me that if I

find another painter who feels like getting the most out of the south, and who like me was

sufficiently absorbed in his work to be able to resign himself to living like a monk . . . bound

up in his work and not inclined to waste his time . . . On my own, I suffer a bit from this

isolation. So I’ve very often thought about talking to you about it straight out.” This draft

revealed that Van Gogh hoped his first guest would be Paul Gauguin, whom he had met in

Paris the previous November. Finally, Gauguin arrived at the Yellow house and lived with

Van Gogh for two months from late October to late December 1888 with a lot of arguments.

On the evening of December 23rd 1888, Van Gogh confronted him with a razor, demanding

to know if he intended to leave Arles. Gauguin's confirmation deeply upset Van Gogh, who

turned out to cut part of his right ear off. After this tragedy, Van Gogh painted his and

Gauguin’s chairs in the same month. Both of them are painted as empty chair metaphors for
Vincent van Gogh Wheatfield with Crows 6

artists that they are not living together anymore, but once shared their thoughts and feelings.

Hence one can see how important Gauguin was to Van Gogh.

As Theo lived with his family in Paris, Gauguin broke up with the artist and never

sees him again; the artist physically lost two relationships. After all, they all lead separate

lives. As Van Gogh needs friendship like everyone else, “Like everyone else, I have need of

relationships of friendship or affection or trusting companionship, and am not like a street

pump or lamp-post, whether of stone or iron, so that I can’t do without them without

perceiving an emptiness and feeling their lack” (Letter 154). He revealed his desire for

friendship long before. In other words, it could be deduced that breaking up with his best

friend and leaving his family against his will for having relationships with people. Therefore

the paths could be painted to recall and remember his two closest relationships, the lost of

relationships also suggests loneliness and alienation of the artist.

Apart from the paths and the wheat field, crows in the dark sky could also be a

medium for the artist to express his alienated situation. The crows are separated into two

groups by the middle path, the group on the left is smaller and seems to be detached from the

larger group on the right. As birds have a habit of forming a flock, which gives them the

opportunity to find food easier and presents a predator with more possible targets, which

lowers the danger for any single bird. Comparing Van Gogh with the smaller crows group,

one could observe a similar situation between them; both are detached from the larger group,

the society. Therefore, from analyzing the habit of birds, we could deduce that the crows

group is reflecting the artist’s behavior; he was putting himself at risk by leaving and

alienating from the society.

Last but not least, the emptiness of the night sky leads to another clue to alienation.

When compared some of his famous nighttime landscape works, like Starry Night Over The

Rhone, Starry Night and Terrace of a café at night, or even some daytime works like
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Wheatfield with a Reaper or Wheatfield with Cypresses, with the Wheatfield with Crows, one

can see that the sky in these paintings is full of stars and in good weather. Especially the

famous Starry Night, which shows how the tremendous power of nature is appreciated by the

artist. But in the Wheatfield with Crows, the troubled night sky is filled with disconnected

heavy brush strokes and shades of blackness. In Letter 649, Van Gogh wrote to Theo

describing three paintings that he was working on, one of those is Wheatfield with Crows,

“They are vast fields of wheat under troubled skies, and I did not need to go out of my way to

try to express sadness and extreme loneliness.” This letter clearly supports that the troubled

sky reflects the painful situation in his mind.

The different elements analyzed in this paper offer an insight of the alienated and

lonely world of Vincent van Gogh. The sense of alienation is reflected and connected by

using different formal elements, like zigzag lines and dark tone, and by the application of

these elements into different objects like absence of human sign. Besides, question of how to

analyze and appreciate an artwork would become much more complicated if we understand

that the techniques used by the artist could also tell a rich story. Historical facts could be one

of the references, but should not be the only way to be considered.

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