Response to 'Wheatfield with Crows'

John Berger suggests to look at 'Wheatfield with crows' by Vincent Van Gogh. At first the book instructs the reader to look at the painting and the turn the page. Where you are met with the statement, 'This is the last picture that Van Gogh painted before he killed himself'. Berger states...

'It is hard to define exactly how the words have changed the image but undoubtedly they have. The image now illustrates the sentence.'

I found this to be very true. The image at first appears to be a simple windswept landscape, predominantly bright colours, after reading the text, the image pulls your attention to the dark layer at the top image and then the image seemed dark and ominous. More attention was paid to the crows and the brush strokes now seem very turbulent. This exercise showed me how text around a painting can alter how we interpret the image.