Cypresses, 1889
Vincent van Gogh
Flame-shaped trees rendered with the same restless brushwork as his skies.
Van Gogh saw cypresses as 'a splash of black in a sunny landscape,' as beautiful and difficult to get right as an Egyptian obelisk. Here one rises like a green flame against a swirling Provençal sky — dark, sculptural, and full of movement.
What you're looking at
The tree runs straight out of the top of the picture. Van Gogh crops it deliberately so it cannot be taken in at once, and paints it in ropes of dark green laid on thick enough to cast their own small shadows across the surface. Everything else in the canvas — cloud, wheat, scrub — is given the same twisting stroke, so the tree is not so much in the landscape as made of it.
On a Frame TV
About 4:5, so the matted file keeps the full height of the tree, which is the picture. Dark green against a pale sky and strongly textured; it reads well in most light.
- 4K master file (3840px+)
- Samsung Frame TV–ready crop
- Phone wallpaper crop
- Printable art card
Public domain · one .zip, no sign-up
More like this
Other works in the collection, starting with Vincent van Gogh.
