Cypresses

Vincent van Gogh had a life filled with troubles and tribulations and that was clearly depicted by his notorious brushstrokes. His brushworks were often energetic and dynamic, all with various thicknesses and sizes to render all his paintings.

He utilises short but steady lines that are repetitive throughout his painting. This painting was a product of Vincent van Gogh’s stay at an asylum in Saint-Remy, France. Even though he did quite a number of paintings on cypresses, this particular one stood out from the rest. He clearly brought out all the visual elements in the scene quite vividly by the richness of the oil colours he used to create this painting. The rich colours catch the attention of the eye just at first sight because he was able to contrast the cypresses in the foreground from the busy background. The cypresses are painted in deep-green colour with muted tones of light green and yellow, a technique Vincent van Gogh had mastered. The middle ground is filled with mustard-yellow grasses that surround the trees and the dots are a beautiful depiction of white lines.

Techniques

In this painting, Vincent utilised his impasto technique which was a product of layering paint. The cypress painting was created by different sized brushworks that played a crucial role in ensuring that there was an element of variety in the painting but at the same he achieved to unify the general movement that was created by the objects in the background like skies and mountains. It accords a viewer a calming effect since his brushstrokes intricately mimic the object forms. The materials used were oil paints and canvas, which were most suitable for him to come up with his almost three dimensional paintings. He mixed all the colours with a palette knife until he achieved his desired blend. Similar works include The Starry Night and Wheat field with Cypresses.

Influences

As a painter, Van Gogh looked up to other great names who he found great inspiration from. Such artists include Eugène Delacroix who had such great command of colour, Rembrandt, Millet, Gauguin among others. This artists played a pivotal role in Vincent’s works, which saw him achieve great improvements in the quality and richness of his colour plus the speed and intensity of his brushworks. During his era, Van Gogh was a great inspiration to great names like Matisse who adopted his style of loose application and colour usage and Paul Klee who was keen to adopt Vincent’s use of strong colours in many of his works. He continues being a great source of inspiration to many more artists today.