Cypresses and Two Women

Cypresses and Two Women, in the Van Gogh Museum and dated to early 1890, was painted as Van Gogh was preparing to leave Saint-Rémy for Auvers-sur-Oise. The cypresses were his other great Saint-Rémy obsession alongside the olive trees — tall, flame-like forms that he described as 'beautiful as regards line and proportion like an Egyptian obelisk.' The two women figures are unusual additions to his landscape work at this period: the presence of human figures among the agitated natural forms suggests an attempt to reconcile the turbulent landscape vision of his asylum year with a more stable human element.

The cypresses dominate the composition with their characteristic flame-like profiles, rendered in dark greens and blacks with writhing vertical strokes. The two small female figures at the base provide scale and a human anchor to what would otherwise be a purely elemental composition of trees, sky, and path.