Art Analysis : The Starrry Night By Vincent Van Gogh

During Vincent’s time at the Saint-Rémy sanatorium, he painted one of his renowned landscape paintings, Starry Night in 1889. The choice of medium used was oil paint where Vincent famously displayed his impasto technique on the hemp material canvas. He wrote to his brother about his inspiration stating, “This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big” . Hence, you can infer that Starry Night was painted from the view of Vincent’s room where the background of the composition depicts the night scenery of a small and peaceful village, which juxtaposes the movements of the brightly lit sky. However, Vincent did not exactly follow what he saw from his window but painted from what he saw in his imagination, following the likes of Gauguin.

When I first saw Vincent van Gogh’s painting of The Starry Night, I was immediately drawn to the peaceful luminescent stars emanating outward like vibrant yellow halos into the captivating striking blue sky. I felt a sense of calm and tranquility as the bright orange moon shone intently over the serene village below. The sprawling mountain range, grassy hills and fields of wheat intensified this feeling as a soft wind swept through the countryside. Under the immense stars and vibrant night sky, the people of the village sleep soundly in their cottages. This painting exudes an overwhelming feeling of calmness and peace in my mind.

Post-Impressionists left behind the Impressionist doctrine of truth to nature. Rather, they chose “in favor of restless feeling and intense color, as in this highly charged picture, van Gogh made his work a touchstone for all subsequent Expressionist painting” (WikiArt, 2016). Vincent Van Gogh’s, The Starry Night, is Post-Impressionism oil painting on canvas. He created it in 1889, during the time he was committed to the mental asylum in Saint-Rémy, France.

The Starry Night are one of Vincent Van Gogh's most famous paintings. The Starry Night was painted from a memory that he had. And wasn't painted from a landscape. The landscape was formed using curves and forms of short lines he also used a form of swirling lines and texture. He used blue, white, and yellow lines to paint the piece. And it became one of his most famous pieces of art. He finished the art piece in 1889.

Before starting my research into van Gogh. I knew as much as the ordinary person would about him. His artwork is so renowned in the world that generally everyone has an idea of who he was and I shared that understanding. Whenever someone talks about post-impressionism van Gogh’s name is always mentioned. Before my research, I knew two of his works, one, a self-portrait (1887) , which is one of over thirty portraits he painted between 1886 and 1889. The second artwork is the famous ‘The Starry Night’ , which I first discovered by looking at a teapot my mother owns which has the painting on it. I remember it catching my eye because of the way van Gogh was able to capture light and the way he created movement in the sky through the use of swirls but I hadn’t taken my interest in his work any further.

Vincent Van-gogh is the creator of “Starry Night”. He was born March 30th, 1853 in Zundert, Netherlands. “Van Gogh painted "The Starry Night" in France”(). Vincent Van-Gogh was rejected by his town because they thought he was crazy. Vincent painted “Starry Night” in 1889. It is now located in Museum of Modern Art, in New York

I had watched a short video presentation on Vincent Van Gogh’s artwork that followed along with a song called “Vincent (Starry, starry night)” on Youtube. I watched this video with my class in Art Appreciation at Rogers State University.

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,

The Post-Impressionism artist Vincent Van Gogh created his masterwork Starry Night in 1889. Unlike the painting of Altdorfer, this painting was more personal and had the conflict of man vs. himself. The painting of Starry Night took place in France while he was in the care of the Saint Remy of Provence Psychiatric Hospital. Van Gogh yearned for a life that was calm and harmonious during his seemingly never ending depressive state. In Starry Night Van Gogh’s point of view is omniscient as well but, he detaches himself even further. He Van Gogh creates a night sky embellished by the swirling of its clouds and the illuminating blaze from its stars. He uses lines that are arabesque in continuation that creates a fluid like design over the work making it harmonious. Located below the dynamic sky is a row rolling hills in which the artist used different tones to create a sense of depth in his work by the use of atmospheric perspective however, the painting still has a look of flatness. The hills lead the eyes to a small calm inviting town created using simple shapes. The church in the valley towers over all the homes as if it was a guardian. The tall steeple of the church is not able to touch the magnificent sky however, there is an eerie cypress tree in the foreground it is able to touch the

This is good for painters who take a while on paintings because they can come back the next day and manipulate something that they want to look differently. The Starry Night is a type of oil painting. It is a realistic picture of what a nighttime sky would look like, therefore it is a piece of representational artwork. You can tell that Van Gogh built up a lot of layers to form the different hues of blues he wanted throughout the painting. The stars in this are very strong and bright while the village seems a little gloomy and depressing.

This tree serves to connect earth and sky and this could reflect the artist´s own thoughts about death - that death is the destination of life´s journey. With Starry Night Vincent van Gogh moves away from the traditional Impressionist joining with nature and instead accepts a feeling of anxiety. His swirling brush strokes give the imprint that this painting is continuously moving and his palette is much more vibrant than in earlier works. It´s thought that van Gogh was the first artist to paint these night-time scenes directly and it's reported that he stayed up three nights to finish the painting, stating that night was "more alive than the day." For van Gogh the Starry Night painting was a income of proving his worth as an artist and it was an opportunity

“The Starry Night” is one of Van Gogh most well-known work. The art piece composes of swirling sky that are intended to help viewer eyes move throughout the painting, and a tree pointing up in the sky. It may be the effect of Van Gogh mental illness; the whole art piece gives off a dreamlike feel. Van Gogh choice of color make “The Starry Night” look even more mysterious. Besides, he uses light to emphasis movement between swirl creating this imaginative world (Vincent Van Gogh Gallery). Compare to “Potato Easter,” Van Gogh style has changes dramatically.

     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.

Starry Night was painted by Vincent Van Gogh, a Dutch painter who was well known for being an impressionist during his time. Van Gogh was born March 30, 1853 in the Netherlands and died at the age of 37 in France where he actually painted Starry Night while in the Hospital. Starry Night is located in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (Van Gogh Gallery). The main point of emphasis in Starry Night is the relationships between a community, nature, and religion. Van Gogh ties these three points of emphasis together in an exceptional manner in Starry Night. He compares the community and nature by placing the town near an alluring

“Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul,” said William Maugham, a British playwright from the 19th century. Vincent Van Gogh, an artist who is considered by many one of the most inspirational artists in history, was no stranger to depicting his struggles in life or feelings in his work. Van Gogh’s piece Starry Night, designed in the year 1889, shows this to be true in that it was the result of his experiences in an asylum that encouraged this piece. Despite this work has being so well known, many critics and observers of the piece have differing views on what he was trying to communicate through it. Two prime examples of this can be seen by the views expressed in the poems entitled, “Vincent” and “The Starry Night”, written by Don McClean and Anne Sexton, respectively. While the poem “Vincent”, has a depressing tone to it, “The Starry Night”, by Anne Sexton, depicts Starry Night as having a more lively mood, which more accurately represents that of the painting, by Vincent Van Gogh.