Wheat Field at Auvers with House

Painted at Auvers-sur-Oise in June 1890, this view of a wheat field with a house and the broad Auvers plain shows the expansive horizontal compositions Van Gogh favoured in his final weeks. He was painting at extraordinary speed and productivity at Auvers, producing nearly one canvas per day. Writing to Theo, he described the fields around Auvers as 'infinitely beautiful' and painted them obsessively. The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. holds this work, which captures the bright summer light of the Île-de-France with the vibrant brushwork of Van Gogh's final period.

Broad horizontal bands of yellow grain, green grass, and blue sky create a layered, panoramic composition. The house anchor provides vertical weight against the dominant horizontality. Short, energetic parallel strokes in the field convey the trembling of grain in wind. Colour application is confident and rapid, the paint surface rich with gestural marks that register the speed of execution.