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Van Gogh finds the dark cypresses with their flaming silhouettes so characteristic of Provence, "as regards lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk. And the green has such a distinguished quality. It’s the dark patch in a sun-drenched landscape, but it’s one of the most interesting dark notes, the most difficult to hit off exactly that I can imagine.
The critic Albert Aurier published an article full of praise for Van Gogh’s work in January 1890. He commended the painter as a dreaming realist who bent reality to his will in an unparalleled manner. Van Gogh was pleasantly surprised by this, even though he felt that Aurier paid him too great a tribute. By way of thanks, he sent him this Cypresses with Two Figures.
"He describes this painting as "a group of them [cypresses] in the corner of a wheat field on a summer’s day when the mistral is blowing. […] enveloped in blue moving in great circulating currents of air." It is one of his works with the most impasto. The trees are made up of curly, flame-like brushstrokes and all the surrounding vegetation is also full of life, as though the mistral is raging violently.