Elisabeth Condon’s Nocturne vs. Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night

The life span of 37 years saw Vincent Willem van Gogh (Vincent) in creating beautiful works he dearly loved. Painting was an avenue, which allowed him to express his inner thoughts or vent his struggles. My decision to research on Vincent’s painting, Starry Night (1889) came with the inspiration from Don Mclean’s Song, Starry Starry Night where his lyrics spoke about Vincent’s life that further intrigued me in writing this paper.

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.

Several of artists were known in the 15th century, one of these Post-Impressionists was the Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh trusted that art was a type of expression. A painting was an enthusiastic and profound experience for him. He was born on March 30th, 1853 and passed away on July 29th, 1890. When Van Gogh was alive he sold only one of his painting, but now that he is dead he is the most famous artist. Each painting provides a certain way of information. The two painting's that caught my attention are "The Starry night." and "The potato eaters." These are the two paintings that are going to be compared. "The starry night" is one of the most well-known pieces of Van Gogh in modern culture. The reason why this painting is well liked

Art History is the study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts. The history of art, we feel, can sometimes be confused with art criticism. However, Art History is concerned with finding the value of the artistic piece in respect with others in the same category of art or movement, and art criticism is more of an evaluation of art. The art examined best represents the culture during the time period, visions the artist imagined, and history behind an event. It also represents society in a specific area, beliefs the people may have, writing that tells a story, the natural world and environment, conflict between people and areas, and the human body. With these representations, artwork overall represents the life in which we live (d). Each piece has its own genre, design, format and style to it. This makes each piece extremely different, yet pleasing to the eye. They also vary between paintings, sculptures and architecture. These different types also make a variety of artwork to be seen by all people. The art pieces that I chose, Jar, Bottle and Glass by Juan Gris, The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí, and Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, seemed interesting to me and I believe to best represent the context in which they were created, along with the major artistic movements of the time. I went on to research them more thoroughly to better understand the history behind them,

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.

When you look at the two paintings; “The Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh, and “Number 1 1949” by Jackson Pollock; there are a few similarities about the meaning of the works of art. Their background and history are different. These paintings were created in two totally different eras and have different formal and technical aspects. Saying that, these works of art share no spiritual or moral value. Respectively these paintings have a great history and legacy. Two paintings created in different time periods have little in common but yet so much in common.

Hayakawa states a creative person “is not limited in his thinking to ‘what everyone else knows’” (167). As a painter, Vincent Van Gogh was forced to see things differently from others and he had to find a way to portray his ideas on canvas. Displaying one’s ideas on a piece of canvas is a very difficult task for all painters. In a letter to his brother, Theo, Van Gogh explains his attempts “to express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colours, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones.”(Van Gogh 531). In this letter, he explains how he tried to show the love of two humans through the relationship that two colors have with each other. Love is a difficult emotion to describe with words yet Van Gogh manages to describe love using paint. He used his

Van Gogh paints the town in proximity to show the closeness of the town however, not only for unity but to show the relationship of the town. Van Gogh also uses cool tones in repetition to show unity throughout the whole painting. The paintings also have the motif of death or demise with a tall dark figure. Both Altdorfer and Van Gogh relates to each other compositionally however it is mot they only way. The Battle of Issus and Starry Night both uses nature as a metaphor to further convey a type of emotion and a type of conflict behind it.

In “Van Gogh’s Agony”, Lauren Soth proposes the argument that Starry Night by artist Vincent Van Gogh is more than just a landscape created from direct observation, but a nontraditional outlet for Van Gogh’s repressed religious beliefs that could not be expressed through traditional Christian imagery. However, Soth presents little convincing evidence from sources both primary and secondary to support this theory. Although some of the evidence may support his thesis, readers are quickly forced to doubt his knowledge. Throughout the paper, Soth presents information that contradicts the theories and information he provides, questions his own arguments, and is very quick to make conclusions and over analyze the artwork. Although Soth does provide a couple points that seem to work in supporting his thesis, these are overshadowed by the time spent focusing on trivial matters.

The first work that I am evaluating is "The Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh which was created in June 1889 and is currently located at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “The Starry Night” was painted during the post-impressionist period, and is one of several that Van Gogh produced while staying at the asylum in Saint-Remy in southern France. According to Soomo Learning (2017) the piece is "a vision of dynamic spiritual movement from temporality to eternity" (Section 2.4.2 Art Gallery). The painting depicts an imagined view of the town of Saint-Remy, with a Dutch style church at the center and rolling hills in the background. It appears to be just before dawn with bright stars, Venus, and the moon set in a vivid blue swirling sky. Contrasting the bright stars and brilliant blue sky is a dark looming cypress tree that occupies the left side of the image and contains a flamelike appearance.

A great artist once wrote, “If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced”. This artist was Vincent van Gogh, soon to be an appraised artist known all around the world for his works, such as Starry Night. He is one of the very first artists of the post-impressionist style than is now adored in every continent. However, there is much more to the man than one painting. Creating a full timeline that stretches beyond Gogh’s life, this paper will discuss the life of Vincent van Gogh and the impression he made on the world.

This masterpiece was painted by Van Gogh in 1889 while he was receiving treatment in Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, a mental asylum. The beautiful painting that many people have come to love today was never appreciated during its own time. Various art critics thought that the large brush strokes Van Gogh had made in Starry Night seemed “messy” and “childlike”. The strokes also convinced people that Van Gogh was truly crazy and that he was not as talented as other artists. Yet the pencil thick lines are what made the painting look hyper-realistic and eye-catching. They have a calming, consistent effect on people whose eyes want to follow the swirls and lines. The brush strokes that Van Gogh added more texture, detail, and blended the colors easily to one another in Starry Night. The realistic details make it feel as if the painting is trying to get a message across to the public. With every line that Vincent van Gogh had made he put as much feelings into them as he did with effort.

     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.

“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.