Van Gogh · Auvers · panoramic formats
Wheat fields under the clouds: compare the two great panoramas of Auvers
In Auvers, Van Gogh painted several very elongated landscapes, almost like friezes. Two large panoramas of wheat fields particularly respond to each other: one under a stormy sky, the other in the open expanse of the plain.
These paintings do not tell the same thing. Wheat field under stormy skies concentrates tension in the sky; The Auvers Plain stretches your gaze in the fields. Same format, same village, but two different ways of transforming the countryside into emotion.
Short answer
What is the difference between the two panoramas?
Wheat field under stormy skies is more frontal, more bare, almost abstract: a field, a low horizon, a heavy sky. The Auvers Plain is more constructed: it multiplies the planes, the colored paths, the cultivated areas. The first gives atmospheric pressure; the second gives a depth that opens.
Same format
Both works belong to the family of large horizontal canvases from Auvers.
Two rhythms
One advances in broad bands; the other by zigzags, spots and successive planes.
Two skies
Stormy sky crushes; the clearer sky lets the plain breathe.
The same tension
Van Gogh seeks to paint both solitude and the “fortifying” side of the countryside.
Face to face
Two fields of wheat, two ways of breathing
Panoramic format is not a simple decorative choice. Van Gogh uses it to give the landscape a physical width: the viewer no longer looks at a window, he finds himself in front of an expanse.
Van Gogh Museum · F778
The field under the storm
The composition is almost elementary: a large strip of wheat, a strip of sky, and between the two a very low horizon line. The painting draws its strength from this simplicity.
The sky is not a setting: it is the real actor. It descends immediately, charges it, making it both vast and oppressive.
Belvedere, Vienna · F775
The plain as depth
Here, the landscape fragments: fields, flowers, millstones, colored paths and high horizons organize a more complex escape. The gaze is not crushed, it circulates.
The canvas retains a tension, but it also offers an impression of continuous, almost marine space: the countryside extends beyond the frame.
Visual reading
Six keys to seeing what Van Gogh himself compares
In his letters, Van Gogh associates these large fields with a double emotion: solitude, but also the restorative power of the countryside. It is this contradiction that makes the panoramas of Auvers so modern.
The sky weighs
In the storm panorama, clouds occupy a massive area. They give the painting its pressure.
The field resists
Wheat is not only yellow: it is streaked, worked, almost agitated by the wind.
The horizon is low
The lower the horizon, the more psychological, almost monumental the sky becomes.
The plain opens
In The Auvers Plain, successive shots create a more breathable depth.
The format stretches
The 50 × 100 cm forces the eye to scan the surface, as in a real landscape.
Loneliness is not empty
In Van Gogh, the absence of figures does not make the landscape dead: it makes it more intense.
Comparative table
Thunderstorm, plain, rain: how not to confuse them
Around July 1890, Van Gogh multiplied the wheat fields. The titles are similar; the sensations are very different.
| Work | Date and format | Collection | What dominates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat field under stormy skies | July 1890, approx. 50 × 100.5 cm | Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam | A heavy sky, a frontal solitude, a great simplicity of bands. |
| La Plaine d'Auvers / Wheat Fields near Auvers | June 1890, approx. 50 × 101 cm | Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna | Zigzag depth, field colors, an expanding landscape. |
| Wheat fields after the rain /La Plaine d'Auvers | July 1890, approx. 73 × 92 cm | Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh | A landscape after the downpour, more compact, less panoramic but close in theme. |
| Green wheat fields, Auvers | 1890, classic horizontal format | National Gallery of Art, Washington | Green freshness, wind, road and clear clouds. |
Gallery of landmarks
Neighboring works illuminate the two panoramas
To understand the large formats of Auvers, we must place them in a family of landscapes: fields under the storm, fields after the rain, green fields, field with crows.
Wheat fields after the rain shows another state of the sky: less stormy, wetter, more fragmented.
Green wheat fields gives a cooler, more spring-like version of the same rural energy.
Wheat field with crows shares the large format, but adds paths and birds.
Real photos
The fields of Auvers today
These photos do not claim to show exactly the same point of view as Van Gogh. Rather, they serve to feel the real landscape: an open countryside, low horizons, fields that change according to the season and the sky.
A wheat field in Auvers: we understand better why Van Gogh stretches the horizontal format, with this feeling of a low and wide landscape.
The real Auvers countryside keeps this alternation of fields, paths and sky very present: exactly what Van Gogh pushes to the extreme in his panoramas.
In the store
Related reproductions and collections
The exact products exist in the store, with useful collections for exploring the fields, Auvers and panoramic landscapes.
Wheat field under storm clouds - hand painted reproduction after Van Gogh.
The Plaine d'Auvers - large panoramic landscape of the final period.
Van Gogh Wheat Fields Collection: storms, crows, harvests, plains and horizons.
Van Gogh in Auvers: houses, fields, portraits, gardens and latest paintings.
Sources
Reliable benchmarks
The sheets below allow you to check the titles, dimensions, places of conservation and catalog references of the works compared.
Wheat Field Under Clouded Sky : 50 × 100.5 cm, July 1890, Van Gogh Museum.
Van Gogh GalleryWheat Fields near Auvers : 50 × 101 cm, June 1890, Belvedere of Vienna.
Wikimedia CommonsFree images and category sheet Wheatfield under Thunderclouds.
National Gallery of ArtOfficial notice of Green Wheat Fields, Auvers, image open access.
Real photoWheat field in Auvers-sur-Oise, free photo CC BY-SA 3.0.
Real photoField in Auvers-sur-Oise, free photo CC BY-SA 4.0.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Some simple benchmarks for titles, formats and confusion around the fields of Auvers.
Do the two panoramas have exactly the same format?
They belong to the same principle of elongated format, around 50 × 100 cm. Wheat field under stormy skies measures approximately 50 × 100.5 cm; Wheat Fields near Auvers approximately 50 × 101 cm.
What work is in the Van Gogh Museum?
Wheat field under stormy skies is kept at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Where is La Plaine d'Auvers located?
The panorama Wheat Fields near Auvers, often close to The Auvers Plain, is kept at the Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere, in Vienna.
Why does Van Gogh paint so many wheat fields in Auvers?
The fields allow him to condense landscape, season, solitude and consolation. In July 1890, the large fields became a very direct language for expressing what he did not formulate otherwise.
Two wide landscapes, but two different emotions
The storm panorama grips the landscape like a heavy thought; the Auvers plain opens up space with its lines and colors. In both cases, Van Gogh does not only paint fields: he paints the way in which a sky, a format and an expanse can carry an entire emotion.
Explore Van Gogh's wheat fields
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