Meditation is an ancient practice that has been used for centuries to improve mental and physical health. It is a form of relaxation that can help reduce stress, improve concentration, and increase overall wellbeing.
Vincent Van Gogh’s A Wheatfield, with Cypresses was my first experience mediating while viewing a painting.
Vincent Van Gogh’s A Wheatfield, with Cypresses is a majestic painting that evokes a sense of tranquility and peace. The painting is a landscape of a wheat field with cypress trees in the background, with the sky a brilliant blue. The painting is filled with an array of colours and textures. Vincent Van Gogh’s brushstrokes can be seen throughout the painting.
By focusing on the painting and its details, I allowed my mind to drift and become immersed in the beauty of the painting. The colours and shapes within the landscape gave a sense of calm. I imagined that I had entered the painting. I felt the warmth of the sun, the cool breeze of the wind, and heard Vincent’s words carried across the years, “It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”
Come join me at the National Gallery London for a 5-minute meditation.
Supported by the John Armitage Charitable Trust.
Meditating on A Wheatfield, with Cypresses is your opportunity to take a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life – to simply enjoy the beauty of the painting and bring a sense of peace and serenity into your day.
A Wheatfield, with Cypresses
Vincent van Gogh
The National Gallery on “A Whitfield, with Cypresses”
“Van Gogh painted several versions of A Wheatfield, with Cypresses during the summer of 1889, while he was a patient in the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Paul de Mausole, in the village of St-Rémy in the south of France. A first version, which he described as a study, was painted on site in late June 1889.
The National Gallery’s painting, which was completed in September while Van Gogh was confined to his hospital room, is the finished version. He also made a smaller copy of it for his mother and sister. The landscape includes typically Provençal motifs such as a golden wheat field, tall evergreen cypresses, an olive bush and a backdrop of the blue Alpilles mountains.
Van Gogh wrote of painting outdoors during the summer mistral, the strong, cold wind of southern France, which here seems to animate the entire landscape. Everything is depicted with powerful rhythmic lines and swirling brushstrokes that convey Van Gogh’s sense of nature’s vitality.” National Gallery