The Wheat Field (series of Paintings) - The Wheat Field - Fall and Winter, 1889

Fall and Winter, 1889

In September Van Gogh worked on Wheat Field behind Saint-Paul Hospital with a Reaper. Intending to paint a pure sulfur yellow, he wrote to Émile Bernard that he had taken up the "devil of a question of yellow". He explained to his brother Theo, "I see in this reaper – an undefined figure, struggling in the intense heat like the devil to finish his work – I see him as an image of death in the sense that the humans are the corn that is being cut down. So it is, if you will, the opposite of the sowing that I tried earlier. But this death is not sad, it takes place in bright light with a sun that covers everything with a light like pure gold."

Rain also called Enclosed Wheat Field in the Rain is unique to Van Gogh's work in the South. He represented falling rain by diagonal lines of paint. The style is reminiscent of Japanese prints, but the effect is stylistically personal to Van Gogh.

In December Van Gogh made Wheat Field with a Rising Sun, held in a private collection. The work, started in late November, shows a sunrise above a field of young wheat in the complementary colors of yellow-green and purple. Deep furrows run towards the enclosed wall behind which is a row of purple hills. The sun is surrounded by a large yellow halo. Van Gogh sough to "express calmness, great peace." Further, he expresses "without making direct reference to the actual Gethsemane... and there is no need to portray figures from the Sermon on the Mount in order to express a comforting and gentle motif." It was one of the six canvases he selected for the exhibit at Les Vingt in Brussels in 1890.