A landscape with a pulse

Follow the lines of a summer landscape, and find a rhythm you can borrow.

Nothing seems completely still here. Clouds curl, wheat leans, and the cypress trees rise in dark, flame-like forms. Before you identify each object, the marks have already set your eyes in motion.

Van Gogh painted this landscape in 1889. The Met describes it as an on-the-spot study, made as he gave renewed attention to cypresses during his time in Saint-Rémy. He later created two studio versions of the composition.

For a contemporary creative exercise, try reading the scene as a collection of gestures. The sky sweeps. The fields ripple. The trees climb. A different kind of line gives each part of the landscape its own voice.

Draw the weather without drawing the sky.

Pick three words for a mood, such as restless, light, or still. Draw a different line for each word. Fill three little rectangles with those lines. Use one pattern as the border of a note or the background of a poster.

Artwork & source

Wheat Field with Cypresses
Vincent van Gogh · 1889 · Oil on canvas
Purchase, The Annenberg Foundation Gift, 1993

View the original museum record ↗
Public domain / The Met Open Access.

Historical context is sourced to the museum record. Visual interpretations and creative exercises are original Storied Spark contributions, not claims about the artist’s intentions. This publication has no museum affiliation.