On Van Gogh's Wheatfied with Crows.....

"I do not intend to spare myself, not to avoid emotions or difficulties. I don't care much whether I live a longer or shorter time… the world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt toward it, because I have walked on this earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude I want to leave some souvenir..".                                    from Van Gogh's letter


Whenever I think of Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows, claimed by some as his ``suicide note on canvas", I am always reminded of yellow mustard fields in our verdant Lidder valley in South Kashmir, in the backdrop of the mighty Himalayas.



The contrast of bright yellow mustard fields and beautiful snowcapped mountains created magic, which has always haunted me. May be this is why I have always loved this painting so much. For years I have been searching for its copy but I had to be content with just a high-resolution copy from internet that now adores my desktop background.


I don’t know why Wheat Field with Crows fascinates me. Has it something to do with the yellow mustard fields I have lost in exile. The absence of yellow in my life, trying to make a living in the dusty gray shades. Or is it just the mystical force of this painting that was painted shortly before Van Gogh shot himself in a wheat field, which he loved to paint. Is it because this painting conveys the turbulence, loneliness and melancholy, so characteristic of much of the Van Gogh’s life and sensitive souls in the capitalist world these days.


I can imagine Van Gogh going for the last walk in the fields on the evening of July 27, 1890, looking at the overwhelming colours all around and then suddenly shooting himself with a revolver. I can imagine the agony of the wounded Van Gogh when he makes his way back home and two days later dies with his brother Theo at his side.


When I first saw it in some coffee table book many years ago, I knew, I had fallen in love with this painting. I loved it just as I have love Leonardo Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks. That time I had no inkling that this painting was Van Gogh's one of the most powerful and fiercely debated paintings.


Though many claim that Wheatfield with Crows was his last painting, most Van Gogh scholars deny it. The painting was painted in July 1890. Though it is not known when exactly it was painted, however in letter 649, written about 10 July 1890, Van Gogh describes three canvases: ``They are vast fields of wheat under troubled skies, and I did not need to go out of my way to try to express sadness and extreme loneliness. ….. these canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words, the health and restorative forces that I see in the country…..’’.


In this sense, the painting is a paradox. On one side, it evokes sadness and loneliness and on the other side, it hints how Van Gogh sought succor and solace from painting in the countryside in the fields. Was it that through painting loneliness and sadness in his soul, he tried to put some broad stroked ``restorative’’ colours in his life, some restorative forces...


When I look at the painting, the central path in brown and green, winding up towards the horizon, evokes a sense of lonely journey to some faraway mysterious horizon. The multiplicity of paths, with two paths on the sides of the painting, has been often linked to confusion and lack of direction in Van Gogh’s life.


Was it the ``indecision of three paths going in different directions’’ or the conscious choice he made before choosing the path of suicide, a merging of sorts with the heavenly yellow spot at the end of the winding central path, that ends mysterious near the horizon.


The turbulence in the sky with broad strokes of blue and black, represent the chaos in Van Gogh's life or equally it could be that he finally sought solace for himself in the cover of the darkness towards the horizon. Here I am reminded of Nietzsche’s lines, ``one must still have chaos in oneself, to give birth to a dancing star’’. How true theses lines seem for Van Gogh.


There has been much speculation on whether the crows are flying towards the painter or away from him. Besides, the dominance of crows, being symbolic harbingers of death, has also led to some debate whether the flight of the crows subtly hinted the end of Van Gogh’s journey or they were just crows in the sky. Was Van Gogh unconsciously painting the subliminal messages from the depths of his own being through his broad brush strokes, which sometimes remind me of automatic writing.


Given Van Gogh’s reverence for life, it seems he simply used crows for giving more movement and vitality to the painting. Many scholars have spent much time looking for hidden messages in his paintings. I wonder why can’t we enjoy his paintings without any interpretations, hidden symbolism or messages. They stand for themselves and convey an aesthetic experience and give us some hints about how one of the greatest painters who ever lived perceived the life around him.


I always imagine the last moments of Van Gogh, his last journey. What must have gone through his head. Why this man who passionately loved life so much, cut short his life so suddenly at 37. Van Gogh was buried in Auvers, with one mourner Emile Bernard describing Van Gogh’s coffin, covered with yellow flowers, and his easel and brushes lying on the ground next to the casket.


For Van Gogh, life meant intensity. He must have abhorred a long fruitless life. What mattered most to him was manifesting beauty and inherent rhythm and chaos in life and Nature, which he perceived and which intoxicated him with its paradox and richness. I realised this while reading his letters. Actually one day I stumbled upon this treasure in the Sunday book market of Daryaganj in New Delhi. The book I was searching for years had finally found me. I bought the book from the poor pavement seller. I was so ecstatic that I wanted to pay more to the pavement seller. I felt pity for him that he gave it so cheap.


When I opened the first page of the book, there was a quote from one of his letters, which made me so emotional that my eyes welled up with tears. The lines were, ``I do not intend to spare myself, not to avoid emotions or difficulties. I don't care much whether I live a longer or shorter time… the world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt toward it, because I have walked on this earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude I want to leave some souvenir...."


And not one, Van Gogh left us so many souvenirs, so many gifts. Van Gogh transformed his pain into gifts, never allowing his struggles, difficulties and rejection to embitter his soul or his sensibility. Whenever I read his letters or look at his paintings, I feel more reverence for life and gratitude for gifts of Nature.