Yellow Road

A twisty yellow farm road in the hinterland of Spain’s Andalusia. A disappearing track, the golden cornfields and slightly ominous skies, elements that reminded me of the painting, ‘Wheatfield with Crows’, by Vincent Van Gogh.

According to the Van Gogh Museum, “the painting (left) is often claimed to be his last work. The menacing sky, the crows and the dead-end path are said to refer to the approaching end of his life, but apparently it’s a myth, because he went on to make several other works after this one.

“Although Van Gogh wanted his wheatfields under stormy skies to express sadness and extreme loneliness,” some experts think he also wanted to show a healthy and fortifying countryside.

Vincent loved the wheatfields on the plateau just above Auvers-sur-Oise, the village to the north of Paris where he lived for his last ten weeks. The fields lay just five minutes’ walk from the inn where he lodged and he would often go there for a stroll, to work or and a chance to think.

And yet, however he regarded the wheat fields he’d painted over and over again, it was where he shot himself in the stomach, wounds which led to his death on July 29, 1890. Theo, Vincent’s brother, who stored the bulk of his works, died six months later and the two brothers were later buried side-by-side in a cemetery overlooking the very wheat fields he’d so avidly painted.

One hundred and thirty two years later – following a little entertaining and enjoyable Photoshopping – another version appears; albeit not with the same pioneering creativity as the original painting or artist.