Analysis Of The Starrry Night By Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh used the seven elements of art in “starry night”. In the swirls in the sky he used lines. He used color in the sky and in the town. You can see the texture in the lush trees and spiraling stars. Compare the cypress tree with the church steeple there is space between them. There is also value from the sky with different shades of blue. He used form in the town. Van Gogh used form in the town.

The mesmerizing painting created by the 20th Century French artist Paul Cezanne portrays how even incomplete works are capable of depicting its own form of art and overall experience. His painting On the Banks of a River is constructed using oil on canvas and is an unfinished lifelike rendering of a natural scenery; well-preserved today at the RISD Museum. Cezanne’s process of painting and his techniques are clearly discernible in this early stage of art. Likely using a wide brush, his paint strokes are both purposeful and confident where his objective is to present only the most vital parts of the piece and each object’s location, creating an artwork made up of blocky, thick, and layered strokes similar to that of impasto paintings (a technique that layers large amounts of paint in order to form a larger picture). From close up it is challenging to distinguish the subject of the painting besides multicolored blotches of paint, but at a distance one can grasp the different shapes and colors merge to form a complete landscape. There are also three layers to this work, each diverse and together offers a sense of depth in the form of overlapping grounds and value contrasts. The foreground is the warmest, composed mainly of a sandy yellow color dotted with gray streaks possibly representative of stones or pavement, with some blue highlights to contrast the dirty yellow. The middle ground is the most detailed and consists of many dark colors and bright red and yellow geometric

Van Gogh seems to create much of his work using three layers within his layout, a foreground, middle ground, and a background. In his painting Wheat Field with Cypress Trees, one can specifically see the different layers (Figure 2). Breaking it apart I see the ground made up of bushes, grass, and other foliage while the middle is formed around the cypress tree itself. There is then the background of the beautiful sky and mountains above and around that ties everything in. These layers are further exaggerated within his painting, Starry Night (Figure 1).

Using this technique allows the artist to create a more complex masterpiece. In his well-known painting Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh utilizes the rhetorical device contrast in color, texture, and definition to convey a peaceful, yet dark, nighttime scene. The juxtaposition of warm and cool colors in Starry Night serves to portray both the harshness and the peacefulness of the night sky. When someone first looks at the painting, the first colors he or she will notice are the very prominent blues

Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch artist from the mid 1800’s who was considered to have created approximately 2000 artworks. Growing up, he was classified to be highly emotional and having low self-esteem. Within those depressed emotions, it helped him pioneer the path of expressionism in his art pieces. But as he got more into him artwork he came more mature with his artwork and caused his color patterns and brush strokes to evolve into another style of art called Impressionism. Starry Night Over the Rhone was one of his last ‘few years’ paintings. It was painted in September of 1888. The canvas resides in Musée d'Orsay,

Having been greatly influenced by Vincent Van Gogh, who was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter most famous for his work, Starry Night (Figure 1), and an “influential figure in the history of Western art” (McKenna, 2015, p. 83), my creative work in photography includes still life and local landscapes. According to McKenna (2015), Van Gogh used contrasting colours and tones to achieve dramatic and vibrant masterpieces. Van Gogh also liked to play with lines and brushstrokes to lead the viewer through his painting. These ideas of using contrast and lines from Van Gogh is what influences most of my creative work, but instead of using oil paint and brushes, I use my digital camera to paint light. A Man’s Best Friend (Figure 2), is a photograph I

Many artists in the early 1900’s and those of today, started to paint because of seeing Van Gogh’s work and style. As I stated in the beginning of this essay, his artwork was very different than the other artists of his time period. His paintings were a direct reflection of his mood and mental state. A lot of his works of were dark and gloomy, while others were uplifting and inspiring. I have also noticed that ever since Van Gogh’s era, a lot of new artists follow Van Gogh’s lead and paint with a very similar technique.

Starry Night’s texture is remarkable. Van Gogh use of bold brush stokes and undulating circles and swirls make the image seem to jump off the canvas. The texture in this work of art visually provides the viewer with a sense of motion and vibrancy as the exaggerating glow from the stars are out of their realistic proportion. The actual texture on the canvas, each swirl and swoop of paint is represented by the brushwork itself, creating a visual texture in perfect synchronization with the actual texture of the painting. Van Gogh’s use of heavy brushstrokes cause the painting to appear to have a rough texture. This causes the painting to have a three-dimensional look and creates contrast in the painting with the night sky to be emphasized from the village depicted.

In order to get an understanding of Van Gogh’s artworks, we must first get to know the very man himself. As it turns out, according to Dr. Cibelli, Van Gogh’s success was a by-product of his many hardships. As was noted in the video, “The Power of Art,” Van Gogh didn’t always have his mind set on becoming an artist. In trying to follow in his father’s footsteps, Van Gogh early in life tried to become a pastor, but was booted out by fellow missionaries. It was after this failure, that Van Gogh decided to paint as a way to express himself and make a living. Unfortunately, his paintings didn’t sell very well (seen as too dark) and he could not turn to his father for help. The rough relationship with his father, as noted by the documentary, stemmed from the fact that Van Gogh’s girlfriend was a former prostitute, and that was something his father could not accept. Luckily for Van Gogh, his brother Theo was by his side both financially and emotionally, even up until death.

There are many different ways an artist uses visual elements/principles in describing their art. The oil painting shows exaggerated colors on the landscape to show the effect and appearance of its brightness. Both vertical and horizontal lines describe the movement away

Van Gogh’s work is representational because of its realistic representation of the night sky over a

The brush strokes create a sense of motion in his work, and with the usage of his rocks, create a story that he is trying to communicate to us. This story begins in the bottom left corner of the painting. Van Gogh uses brush strokes to draw our attention to this point and then carries us to the following rocks through his usage of a zig-sag diagonal. He is taking us through life in this picture, communicating that you will go through ups and downs in your life. This statement can be seen in the second diagonal. We see a thick patch of grass symbolizing a tough time in life’s path, and similarly again at the bottom of the tree. Van Gogh is communicating that you will not always have a clear road to success, but that if you follow the path, you will eventually become success or reach your set goal in life. At least this is what I want to think, but Van Gogh was probably more cynical in his approach, and is probably delivering the message that people will reach their longed, craved evil action right before their death or last moment.

Van Gogh made use of nature to show us his inner vision and emotional state. He uses line, color, spatial composition, distortion, and exaggeration it manipulates us to express his personal world. As he did in many of his paintings, Van Gogh's saw himself as working to create to the next level beyond impressionism. Van Gogh was driven came to art for spiritual goals and a passion and desire to make a difference in the world. Impressionists tried to reflect the world as it was, Van Gogh's art was a communication, or expression of intellect, mystery, emotion, and imagination. His uses shape, form, color, texture, line, space, and value. Brushstrokes are used for texture, variety of color value and shape and form and use of space and line to

     With its swirling colors and lines, The Starry Night, incorporates not just the color and light that is found in the earlier works of these painters, but it shows how forms and feelings also came into play. One of van Gogh’s main beliefs was that art was a direct representation of how the artist feels. Having grown up in a very religious family, van Gogh viewed the heavens as a beautiful, living thing. His heavy brushstrokes and vivid colors portray the night sky as crazy and chaotic and the village below as peaceful and serene. Van Gogh’s troubled life, which involved many failures in life, love and business, forced him into madness, which eventually caused him to commit suicide. While the problems of his life may have caused personal trauma, the artistic importance of his insanity is overwhelming. Perhaps if he had not gone crazy, he never would have created the masterpieces that have had such an impact on art and history.

One of Vincent Van Gogh’s most world renowned paintings is his landscape oil painting Starry Night. The painting displays a small town underneath an unusual yet still extremely beautiful night sky. In this night sky, Van Gogh utilizes an array of colors that blend well together in order to enhance the sky as a whole. The town is clearly a small one due to the amount of buildings that are present in the painting itself. In this small town most of the buildings have lights on which symbolize life in a community. Another visual in Starry Night is the mountain like figures that appear in the background of the illustrious painting. Several things contribute to the beauty of Van Gogh’s painting which are the painting’s function, context, style, and design. Van Gogh’s utilization of these elements help bring further emphasis to his work in Starry Night.