Author Notes
* Wheatfield with Crows is one of Van Gogh's most famous paintings. It is often claimed that this was his very last work. The menacing sky, the crows and the dead-end path are said to refer to the end of his life approaching. But no one is sure he had this in mind when he was painting this picture of the Wheatfield with Crows.
*Van Gogh did want his wheatfields under stormy skies to express 'sadness, extreme loneliness', but at the same time he wanted to show what he considered 'healthy and fortifying about the countryside'.
* Van Gogh used powerful colour combinations in this painting: the blue sky contrasts with the yellow-orange wheat, while the red of the path is intensified by the green bands of grass.
* Murder of crows is the collective noun for a group of crows. This use of murder goes back to the 1400s. There was, at that time, something of a fad for "terms of venery," or names for groups of game animals. Some say the word - murder - was chosen because crows can shred their food with their talons and pull it away from bone indicating brutality on some level.
* You may see a convocation of eagles, an exaltation of larks, a conspiracy of ravens, a murder of crows, a charm of finches, a cast of falcons, a confusion of warblers, or a parliament of owls. These are collective nouns thought up for embellishing groups of birds.
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