Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun

Eternal cycle In the scorching heat of the southern sun, a reaper toils in the field. The wheat, painted with thick dollops of yellow paint, churns all around him. For Van Gogh, the wheat symbolizes the eternal cycle of nature and the transience of life. Death In the reaper, he sees ‘the image of death (…), in this sense that humanity would be the wheat being reaped’. He does, however, add that there is ‘nothing sad’ in this death.