Commentary: Saint-Rémy

Vincent van Gogh Wheatfield with a Reaper July-September 1889 oil on canvas Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

In May 1889 van Gogh had himself interned in the asylum in Saint-Rémy, northwest of Arles, where he spent twelve months and experienced several seizures, usually at intervals of about two to three months. There has been much debate concerning Van Gogh's illness. His doctors diagnosed eliptoid psychosis, or latent epilepsy, characterized by seizures, violence, suicidal tendencies, paranoia, fits of temper, depression, and auditory hallucinations. Whatever the cause, it is clear that he suffered seizures as well as periods of depression and anxiety.

Between seizures Van Gogh could paint, but he lived in continual fear of the attacks. Then after an initial period of discouragement in Saint-Rémy, he began to throw himself back into his art wholeheartedly. Reconciled to the possibility that he might never be cured but had to go on, Van Gogh thus found a new inner strength that is communicated in his art. In an apt analogy, he likened himself to a miner (like those he knew in the Borinage), who worked in constant peril; the mines could collapse, but he had to continue working.

One of the works Van Gogh produced during the time he spent in Saint-Rémy, between May 1889 and May 1890, is described in a letter to Theo in July 1889. He was working on a wheat field with a small reaper and a large sun. This canvas is predominately yellow, save for the sky and purple hills in the background and the reaper. Dissatisfied with his first version of the painting, Van Gogh discarded it. He completed a second version -- this one -- around 4 September and was so pleased with it that he produced another, smaller version, which he sent to his mother and sister for their home.

In describing the scene, he said "in this reaper -- a vague figure working like the devil in the intense heat to finish his task -- I then saw the image of death, in the sense that the wheat being reaped represented mankind." This sounds like a rather gruesome image, but for Van Gogh it was a positive one: "there's nothing sad about this death. It happens in broad daylight, under a sun that bathes everything in a fine golden light."

Perhaps Van Gogh no longer feared death, for it might bring peace. But there is very little peace in this work. The brushwork has once again changed dramatically, and he uses what became his signature brushstroke: swirling, tumultuous globs of paint. The impasto is rich and dense, pure paint heavily worked on the canvas. Van Gogh seems to be playing out his inner turmoil on the canvas with such life and intensity that one cannot help being drawn into the painting by the turbulent brushwork and luscious color.

The motif harks back to the artist's earlier interests in the harvest theme. Although his style and palette may have changed, the work strongly recalls the subjects of Millet. But for Van Gogh the theme had new resonance.

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