Sheaves of Wheat in a Field

Van Gogh's 1885 depiction of sheaves of wheat in a field belongs to his Nuenen period's engagement with the rural Dutch agricultural cycle. Wheat sheaves — bound after harvest and left standing in the field — were a subject Millet had made canonical, and Van Gogh approached them with the same respectful attention he brought to figures of agricultural workers. The image of the field after harvest, full of gathered sheaves, carries both documentary and symbolic weight: labor completed, the year's effort gathered. His dark, earthen palette honors the summer sun baked out of the Brabant landscape.

The sheaves are rendered with directional brushwork that captures their bundled, upright forms and the texture of dried straw. Van Gogh's dark Dutch palette uses yellows and ochres for the wheat against darker earthy backgrounds. The composition is relatively simple, the sheaves filling the middle ground of a flat field.