Symbol of Provence
For Van Gogh, the cypress is the ultimate symbol of Provence.
"The cypresses still preoccupy me", he writes to his brother Theo, "I'd like to do something with them like the canvases of the sunflowers, because it astonishes me that no one has yet done them as I see them.
It's beautiful as regards lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk.
And the green has such a distinguished quality".
Vincent van Gogh | Country road in Provence by night, 1890 | The Kröller-Müller Museum