About Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh is well-regarded as one of the greatest and most famous artists.  His life and work has inspired and influenced much of art history since his tragic death in 1890. In fact, what many people today consider to be the archetypical "artist personna" is largely a result of his influence.

About the painting

Van Gogh sent this painting, together with Still life with Irises, to the 1889 Salon des Independents, where it was viewed with some bewilderment. The painting is now in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The cypresses represent the link between sky and earth, life and death. The slender, gentle trees that have been painted by 15th-century artists with meticulous detail, are turned into dark lames rising to the sky. On the horizon, a bright trail of light fails to illuminate the mountains beneath it. The profile of the rocks is rendered by dark lines: these contours seem to underline the fact that the mountains belong not with the light, but to the earthly sphere.