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DISCUSSION: Dr. Harold Blum noted that although Vincent was psychotic for the last two years of his life, he painted fervently—a restitutive attempt to ward off continuing psychotic disintegration. He agreed that Vincent's suicide was probably triggered by the loss of Theo through marriage and death. He postulated a family romance, shared by the brothers, to account for their special relationship. Vincent was the risen older brother who had died, a man of special destiny; the brother pair represented the two Vincents and the two parents. Vincent would arise in rebirth and resurrection to reunite with his dead namesake, father, and brother.
Dr. Bernard Brodsky questioned whether Crows Over A Wheatfield was indeed Van Gogh's last painting. Statements of Hirschig cast doubt that it was; Meyer Schapiro believed it to be among Vincent's last works. Dr. Brodsky noted that crows are a 'universal' symbol of death in the West, which would support the idea that Vincent was depressed and suicidal when he painted the picture. Despite repeated psychotic intervals, his painting never diminished in quality as the work was a result of an attempt to channel the forces released by his psychosis as well as a result of an autonomous ego function operating alongside the psychosis. Some aspects of his illness were transformed into the form and content of his painting. Dr. Brodsky believes that the psychoanalytic approach has something to add to art criticism, particularly the iconographical, iconological approach exemplified in the work of Panofsky and Gombrich.