Vincent van Gogh Wheatfield with Crows July 1890 oil on canvas Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Daubigny's Garden provides a marked contrast to other images that poured forth from Van Gogh in his last two months. As his mental health deteriorated, his fits of depression became more severe and he would explode in anger; afterward he would often go out into the fields and talk to himself. He was also keenly worried about being a financial burden to his brother. Now that Theo had a wife and small son to support in addition to their mother, Van Gogh felt guilty about accepting his money.

The claim has often been made that Wheatfield with Crows was Van Gogh's last work. That may or may not be true, but it is certainly among the last canvases he produced. He made the painting in July1890. As in other late works, the mood here is stark and ominous. The colors have become almost acidic in some passages, somber and dull in others. The brushwork, too, has become disjointed. In contrast to the taut, vigorous brushstrokes seen in The Harvest, for example, which create an interwoven effect, the brushwork here is starting to fall apart, as if a tapestry is unraveling. The strokes break up, almost seeming to reflect Vincent's emotional state. They are violent, dynamic, and aggressive in their intensity.

Elements of the landscape contribute to the sense of foreboding. The sky is heavy and dark, and the crows -- which feed on carrion -- are a symbol of death and disaster. While this painting alludes to the theme of the harvest, there are no human harvesters present. But perhaps most disturbing are the three paths, moving to the left, to the right, and into the center. The middle path suddenly seems to vanish without a trace.

Van Gogh talked about this canvas in a letter to Theo, describing it and another work he was painting at the same time as having "enormous outstretched wheatfields beneath angry skies." He continues, "I have consciously tried to express sadness and extreme loneliness in them." He communicates that sense very successfully.

What happened to Van Gogh at the end is well known. On 27 July 1890 he went into the field to paint, perhaps on this canvas, and shot himself just below the heart with a revolver. He did not die instantly but managed to return to his room at the Ravoux Inn in the center of town, where he was discovered by the innkeeper. He lingered for two days in great pain, then died in Theo's arms. He was thirty-seven.

Vincent's death came as a tremendous blow to Theo. He died six months later. Several years thereafter, at his wife Johanna's request, Theo was placed alongside of Vincent in the graveyard at Auvers. Van Gogh's life had been a dramatic story of pain and struggle, both personal and artistic. It is easy to understand why the myth of Van Gogh sometimes overwhelms the art, but the art is every bit as powerful.

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