The Symbols of Van Gogh

Introduction:

    Throughout Vincent Van Gogh's works he uses symbols to represent how he feels in different ways. Van Gogh was known to have some mental health problems in his life; a debate goes on as to whether it helped him create the art that he produced. One way to see inside his mind is to look at these symbols in his painting and understand what he is trying to communicate. One of the symbols that can be seen in his works is the cypress tree. Many scholars believe that it represents fortitude and death in the paintings. A symbol that is close to the cypress is the crow. Crows for Van Gogh represented the end of his life approaching. Another symbol that Van Gogh uses would be the sunflower. When we think of a sunflower, chances are that you think of nice summer days with a batch of sunflowers sitting in a vase on the kitchen table. Similarly the sunflower for Van Gogh represents joy and devotion. Like the sunflower, wheat has a positive connotation as it represents benefits from hard work. One of the last symbols that we will be looking at in this curation is the stars. Stars for Van Gogh were glimmers of heaven that were shown against a dark background. The paintings that we are about to look at are a combination of different symbols that were just mentioned. Throughout this curation of Van Gogh art pieces I hope that you will be able to understand more about who Van Gogh was through the symbols he uses in his paintings. 

Wheat Field with Cypresses

Vincent Van Gogh 

1889 

Oil on Canvas

The Metropolitan museum of art 

    In this piece we see two of the symbols that were mentioned above, one being the large cypress tree and the other being the wheat field in the foreground. For the meaning of this painting the large wheatfield shows the abundance of hard work. However, there is an image of death in the background with the cypress. So what Van Gogh is saying with this painting is that all of life is filled with hard work to try as a means of obtaining material belongings, but ultimately all of life just leads to death. This painting represents a turning point towards a darker side of Van Gogh that comes out in his last year of painting.

  The Starry Night

Vincent Van Gogh

1889

Oil on Canvas

The Museum of Modern Art 

    In this painting the symbols that are represented are the stars and the cypress trees. Notice how the cypress is outside of the city and church. This cypress is a representation of fortitude outside of the city and away from the church. The stars show that heaven is far up in the sky away from the city and world. The cypress is reaching up and almost touching the stars. This shows that Van Gogh believes the only way to reach heaven is from his way of fortitude. 

 Sunflowers

Vincent Van Gogh

1888

Oil on Canvas

The National Gallery of Art 

    Van Gogh has a large collection of works that looks just like these sunflowers. In all, there are 11 works of art with sunflowers in a vase. Notice that this painting was done in 1888, before the dark turn of Van Gogh. The sunflowers represent the joy in Van Gogh’s life in this short period of time. The joy through this period and the sunflower representing this joy helps explain why Van Gogh created so many sunflower pieces. 

  Wheatfield With Crows

Vincent Van Gogh

1890

Oil on Canvas

Van Gogh Museum of Art 

    This is one of the darkest and most ominous of Van Gogh's paintings. In it we have a wheat field surrounded by crows. The meaning behind this painting is that there are crops to harvest from the hard work, but they are being overrun by the bats and thunderstorms representing that the end is near. The path also represents the end because it seemingly leads nowhere. Sadly this was one of Van Gogh’s last paintings that he would make before taking his own life. 

  Starry Night Over the Rhone

Vincent Van Gogh

1889

Oil on Canvas

Musée d'Orsay 

     The only symbol that is in this painting is the stars. These are different stars than the ones from Starry Night but they serve the same purpose. In the bottom right there are two people that are looking up at the sky. Van Gogh separates them from the stars at the top by using the reflection and city. This makes it seem like the people can observe heaven but are so far from it. The only attainable piece of heaven to the subjects in the bottom right is the reflection of the stars. 

  Farmhouse in Provence

Vincent Van Gogh

1888

Oil on Canvas

National Gallery of Art

    This is another earlier piece of Van Gogh that has a farmer in the wheat field. This is showing a farmer working to see the fruits of his labor. Behind the working farmer you can see his house and piles of wheat from previous harvests. This is one of the earliest paintings of a wheat field and also is the most clear on the meaning. The farmer working hard in the field and the fruits of his labor in the background sets the stage for the next couple of wheat field paintings that came in the following year.