Wheat Field with Cypresses

Cypresses became Van Gogh's obsession in the final year of his life. In southern France, cypresses mark cemetery boundaries; they are funeral trees. He wrote to Theo in June 1889: "The cypresses are always occupying my thoughts; it astonishes me that they have not yet been done as I see them. The cypress is as beautiful of line and proportion as an Egyptian obelisk." He died ten months later, in a different wheat field. Now at The National Gallery, London @nationalgallery