Reaper (Van Gogh series)

Reaper (French: faucheur, lit. 'reaper'; otherwise known as Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun, Wheat Field with a Reaper, or The Wheatfield Behind Saint Paul's Hospital with a Reaper) is the title given to each of a series of three oil-on-canvas paintings by Vincent van Gogh of a man reaping a wheat field under a bright early-morning sun. To the artist, the reaper represented death and "humanity would be the wheat being reaped". However, Van Gogh did not consider the work to be sad but "almost smiling" and taking "place in broad daylight with a sun that floods everything with a light of fine gold". The series is part of a larger collection of paintings of wheat fields by Van Gogh, and one of at least 14 paintings of the wheat field at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole. The first painting (F617) in the series is thickly impastoed and was started in June 1889. Work on the piece resumed in early September following the artist's weeks-long recovery from a mental breakdown. Van Gogh then created two more stylized versions (F618 and F619) in early and late September 1889. He referred to the paintings as simply faucheur, 'reaper', and said that the first was done from nature as a study, while the second, similarly sized version was "the final painting" completed in studio. While he initially preferred the second version over the study, he eventually concluded that the earlier painting was better. He intended the third, smaller version as a keepsake for his mother or one of his sisters.

Background

In May 1889, Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), a Dutch painter, moved to the Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, to commit himself at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, a psychiatric asylum which was previously a monastery. This presented Van Gogh with a completely different landscape from which to draw inspiration. While Saint-Remy was only 25 kilometres (16 miles) from Arles, his previous residence, it lies below the low massifs of the Alpilles in contrast to the vast plains of Arles. Van Gogh's bedroom window framed a view of an agrarian landscape that became the focus of the artist's work. A wheat field was located below his window, encircled by a wall and hills in the background. The artist made at least 14 paintings and just as many sketches of the scene.

Composition

First painting (F617)

Van Gogh began painting Reaper (F617) in late June 1889. He first mentions the painting in a 25 June 1889 letter to his brother Theo van Gogh where he describes it as "a wheatfield, very yellow and very bright, perhaps the brightest canvas [he has] done". He writes that it was among 12 paintings on which he was currently working. The painting is mentioned again in a 2 July 1889 letter:

The latest one begun is the wheatfield where there's a little reaper and a big sun. The canvas is all yellow with the exception of the wall and the background of purplish hills. In the painting measuring 73 cm × 92 cm (29 in × 36 in), the reaper is depicted with just a few brushstrokes of blue in swirling yellow wheat that leaves an outline of the figure in green. His sickle is only a single brushstroke and barely visible. With the 2 July letter, Van Gogh included around ten sketches of the paintings he was working on at the time, including a sketch (F1546) of this painting. The painting appears to have been mostly completed by then. However, Van Gogh was making further changes to the work while he described it in more detail in a later letter to his brother written on 4–5 September 1889:

I'm struggling with a canvas begun a few days before my indisposition. A reaper, the study is all yellow, terribly thickly [impastoed], but the subject was beautiful and simple. I then saw in this reaper – a vague figure struggling like a devil in the full heat of the day to reach the end of his toil – I then saw the image of death in it, in this sense that humanity would be the wheat being reaped. So if you like it's the opposite of that Sower I tried before. But in this death [there is] nothing sad, it takes place in broad daylight with a sun that floods everything with a light of fine gold. Good, here I am again, however I'm not letting go, and I'm trying again on a new canvas. Before writing the letter quoted above, the artist had suffered a severe mental breakdown. In July 1889, he was confined in the asylum for six weeks and was only permitted to paint again in late August. While writing the 4–5 September letter, he touched up the first painting, which he described as a study, and began working on a new version.

Second painting (F618)

Van Gogh appears to have completed the second painting in a single day and taking breaks to write the letter on 4–5 September 1889. In a later part of the letter, he announces: "Phew – the reaper is finished, I think it will be one that you'll place in your home". He initially preferred this version over the earlier study, describing it as:

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