Van Gogh - Cypresses (1889) | Post-Impressionist Oil

Towering dark green cypress trees swirl against a turbulent blue sky with thick impasto brushstrokes creating rhythmic movement across the Saint-Rémy landscape

Painted during Van Gogh’s asylum stay at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, this work transforms Mediterranean cypresses into flame-like forms reaching toward a roiling sky. The artist wrote to his brother Theo that cypresses were ‘beautiful as regards lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk,’ yet here they pulse with an almost organic urgency through his signature directional brushwork.