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.
"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.
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.
