Post-Van Gogh Retrospective:
Post-Van Gogh Series

Dr. T.F. Chen

Guard Them For Harvest
Acrylic on canvas
36" x 48"
1990

In this painting, Dr. Chen transforms two of Vincent van Gogh's artworks:
"Wheat Field with a Skylark" and "Self-Portrait"

Vincent painted "Wheat Field with a Skylark" in the summer of 1887.  "Self-Portrait (with Straw Hat)," also painted in 1887, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was one of the extraordinary series of Van Gogh's self-portraits which began in the summer of 1887 and continued until February 1888 when he left Paris for Provence.  Evidently, during almost two years in Paris, Vincent had integrated and surpassed Impressionism to go beyond the atmospheric searching in chromatic expression and Divisionism (Pointillism) to achieve an emotional and visionary expression through his violent brushstrokes and blazing color contrast.

Van Gogh's "The Wheat Field with a Skylark" is a painting of open-air subject favored at that time.  Here the choice of motif is simple, yet rooted deep in Vincent's love of nature, peasant life, and the Earth.  Here, a simple section of a golden wheat field is seen with a skylark hovering low above the fields under a breezy serene sky.  The stalks, quivering in the wind, wait to be harvested.

In Chen's version of the wheat field, a straw man stands in the middle of the scene to scare off crows!  A portrait of Vincent with a straw hat is taken as the model for the straw man, with arms outstretched, holding a palette in one hand, and brushes in the other.  Seen from afar, with the golden sun rising behind him, the scarecrow takes the form of a Cross.

Ripened stalks in a field
Each grain, nourished in toil, in pain
Don't let the crows eat them out
Sacrificing himself
Standing as a Cross

Uncle Vincent
Guarding
Cultural Crops.