Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun

Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun, painted in his enclosed garden at Saint-Rémy in 1889, is one of his most resonant late images. He described the reaper in a letter to Theo as 'an image of death in the sense that humanity might be the wheat he is reaping' — yet he went on to note that the reaper seemed to work in full sunlight with equanimity, making death seem 'almost smiling.' The blazing sun in the upper portion of the canvas — a recurring motif in his Arles and Saint-Rémy work — represents both the life-giving force and the consuming intensity of light in the south. This is among the most philosophically charged of all his works.

The composition is dominated by the expanse of golden wheat field under a glowing sun, the tiny figure of the reaper in the middle distance. Van Gogh's impasto is richest in the wheat, where thick ridges of yellow and gold paint create tangible surface energy. The sun is surrounded by a halo of radiating strokes. Sky and hills are rendered in cool blues and greens contrasting with the warmth below.