“The cypress is like an exclamation mark in the landscape, and the shape of the tree is like a flame,” said Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, discussing the Met’s new exhibit, Van Gogh’s Cypresses. “It’s the sort of thing that attracts people and certainly Van Gogh. It also has a certain kind of existential impact. It’s very expressive, and very elegant – it’s psychologically charged for sure.”
Arranged carefully across three galleries, the concise and powerful exhibition is viewable at the Met through 27 August. Among its holdings are The Starry Night, Country Road in Provence by Night, as well as the Met’s own Wheat Field with Cypresses, which due to a stipulation by the painting’s donor, is not permitted to ever leave the museum.
