Starry Night Analysis

The Starry Night over the Rhone is a beautiful piece by Van Gogh. The majority of the painting gives me a sense of stillness and quietness while the bottom fourth of the painting makes me feel like something is coming to disturb that stillness. From spectating the painting on the computer, I can see some of the brush strokes that Van Gogh made on the canvas. The way he painted it makes me feel like I’m looking at puzzle pieces of the world being fit together on this one canvas I think there is much to say about this piece, yet, I am not exactly sure where to start or even how to start.

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.

Vincent van Gogh was a deeply troubled, post-impressionist artist and his painting “Starry Night” is his most famous piece. Working from memory, he painted the oil on canvas passing the time in Saint-Remy-de-Provence located in southern France while undergoing treatment in an insane asylum. The piece is very energetic with eleven fireball

In Vincent van Gogh’s renowned painting, The Starry Night, the vast night sky dominates the background space of the painting. The brightness of the eleven stars, with their yellow celestial glow illuminate the night, blanketing the sleepy, rural village below. Far from the glaring lights of the urban landscape, the pureness of the stars’ radiance floats effortlessly above, lulling the people of the quaint village to sleep. Hovering in the upper right hand corner is a brilliant orange crescent moon, which contributes to the warm mood and aesthetic value of the piece. Mountains, rolling hills and wheat fields surround the cottages as though nature itself is getting a sleepy respite from a long day, much like the townspeople. Toward the forefront of the painting are

Van Gogh felt believed that paintings were conceived in the imagination. He felt like a failure trying to findhis style. Van Gogh painted from nature and working in series. He thought of “A Starry Night” as a religious journey, as like a map, we follow the stars to our death. He was immensely immersed in religion with disillusion not far behind at this time in his life. He believed in life after death andwanted his paintings to show some religious depth. He talked extensively of existing in anotherdimension and used the sky as that

One of the most mysterious and thought-provoking images to date was painted in 1889 from a mental health institution in St. Remy, France by non-other than Vincent Van Gogh. The opulence of blues and yellows has the ability bring a viewer to its knees, mostly in a subconscious manner that evokes a kind of spiritual quest, perhaps one that Van Gogh was on himself. The Starry Night is still heavily contemplated and its meaning is still relatively unknown and quite debated, as is the man himself. In an effort to gain an understanding of not only the painting but the painter himself, I chose two articles that provide an understanding of the art and the artist: Van Gogh’s Agony by Lauren Soth and Under the Starry Night by Denis J. Billy. Both writers take a different approach to grasping the elusive understanding of this wondrous work but occasionally find some similarities and understanding of him and his work, which I will elaborate on through the course of this paper.

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.

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.

Imagine the wonder of staring into a clear night sky, being able to see the stars reflecting against water and seeing the faint light of civilization in the distance. This is the same mindset that caught Van Gogh’s imagination. In fact, it excited Van Gogh so much, he would say to another painter before painting “But when shall I ever paint the Starry Sky, this painting that keeps haunting me” (Lewandowski). Starry Night Over the Rhone and Starry Night would be the culmination of his thoughts and efforts. However, even though they are a part of the same collection, these paintings contain stark differences compared to each other. Mostly, these differences are found in the former painting. Compared to the latter, this version contains much calmer colors, and the style is much less aggressive, with less emphasis on the stars and more emphasis on how light interacts. Nevertheless, both paintings represent two different states of Van Gogh’s mind. Starry Night Over the Rhone, compared to Starry Night, was painted during a much happier time in Van Gogh’s life, which is reflected both in style, color, imagery, and in history.

One of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings is The Starry Night. Although, Van Gogh sold only one painting in his life, the aftermath of his work is enormous (Schapiro 31). Widely known as his greatest piece of work, the painting has been reproduced several times and is one of his most famous paintings. Van Gogh however, was not satisfied with this painting, in a letter to his brother Theo from Saint-Remy he states,

     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.

The Starry Night portrait was created by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh during the period of the 20th-century renaissance. This masterpiece was one of Vincent van Gogh well-known painting in the history of art which brought him fame. The Starry Night was so popular because of this painting represents star that makes you dream. This masterpiece was painted on June 1889 during his stay at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. During the time he created this masterpiece, Vincent van Gogh live in a hospital while he continues to make this art when he was ill.