Starry Night By Van Gogh

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,

It is very popular due to having so many aspects that intrigue viewers. There is the night sky filled with swirling clouds, stars ablaze with their own luminescence, and a bright crescent moon. This sky keeps the viewer’s eyes moving about the painting, following the curves and creating a visual dot to dot with the stars. Below the rolling hills of the horizon lies a small town. There is a peaceful aspect flowing from the structures. The center of the town is the tall steeple of the church, towering largely over the smaller buildings. This steeple gives a sense of stability to the town and also creates the sense of size and isolation. To the left of the painting there is a large dark structure that creates an even greater sense of size and solitude. This structure is grand when compared to the scale of the other objects. The curving lines reflect the ones in the sky and creates depth. This structure also lets the viewer to make sense of what it is. Van Gogh’s use of color in “The Starry Night” has been much debated, p​articularly the dominance of yellow in this and some of his other later works. Some say the odd choice of coloring in his painting was due to him possibly suffering from lead poisoning. Van Gogh's use of white and yellow creates a circling effect and draws focus to the sky. Vertical lines such as the tree and church tower softly break up the composition without taking away from the night sky in Starry Night. Vincent van Gogh ́s choice of greens and dark blues were achieved with little bits of mint green which shows the reflection of the moon. The buildings in the center of the painting are small blocks of yellows, oranges, and greens with red to the left of the church. The blue in Starry Night is balanced by the orange of the night sky elements. Van Gogh ́s passion for nighttime is evident in the Starry Night painting, where the strong sky sits above the quiet town. It seems

The swirling lines and brilliantly contrasting blues and yellows and the thickly layered brushstrokes of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night are engrained in the minds of many. Starry Night was painted in June of 1889 and was inspired by an image of the French city of Arles at night; van Gogh completed this work outdoors with the help of a gas lamplight. Starry Night is an oil on canvas painting and which depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint Remy-de-Provence. CITATION Van Gogh brilliantly utilized the elements of art with color, light, tone, form, texture, and composition being the elements that stand out the most.

The Starry Night is an oil on canvas work that was created by Vincent van Gogh in 1889.

If I had to pick a piece of art I would pick the painting Starry Night. This piece of art was painted by Van Gough and hangs in the Museum of Art in New York. I relate this particular piece of art to a moment in time when I would travel to New Jersey in the summers and explore the city of New York. One day my mom and the friends we stayed with decided to visit the Museum of Art since my mom’s an art major we were always doing things like this. I saw many pieces of art, but there was a particular painting that caught my eye Starry night. So many beautiful paintings were hung, but Starry Night always makes me relate, and think of the time spent in New York.

Well-known artist Vincent van Gogh created the painting, Starry Night in 1889 during the impressionism movement. Starry Night is a very popular piece of artwork and holds much meaning. Van Gogh’s choice of medium was oil paint where he famously exhibited his impasto technique on the canvas. Starry Night was an exceptional way to demonstrate how emotions can be conveyed through the stroke of a brush and pigments used. This famous masterpiece was created while he was restricted to the Saint-Remy Asylum. Starry Night came to be one of the last major paintings he ever created and one of artworks earliest examples of expressionism. This popular work of art exhibits a variety of objects, moods, and atmospheric feelings. Through the use of texture, color, and descriptive objects, Van Gogh popular piece will forever be remembered for its endless beauty and mystery.

While researching Vincent Van Gogh, I found out several interesting facts about him that I previously didn’t know. I also found out information on one of his famous paintings, Starry Night . My goal for this essay is to provide information and insight into both van Gogh and Starry Night.

“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.

It is fair to say van Gogh was not in a good emotional place when he painted Starry Night. On May 8th 1889, van Gogh entered the hospital of St.-Paul-de-Mausole at St.-Rémy because of his mental instability. He did not leave for many weeks therefore he was able to devote the majority of his time to his paintings. van Gogh painted Starry Night in June between 16-18. The mountains are the ones he could see from his cell window but are exaggerated to reflect this idea of another world or religion that he had connected with in the past (Soth).

Renowned artist, Vincent Van Gogh, expresses his practice of religion through his artwork, “When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars”. In this statement he is expressing how his religion affects his artwork. Van Gogh’s faith is portrayed in his paintings in the sense that it inspires his creative ideas. In Van Goghs’ painting Starry Night, the oppression of religion is being voiced through the foremost focal figure, the wave of Christianity and the holy church.

The 1889 painting, Starry Night, conceptualized and composed by Vincent van Gogh has long been a favorite art piece of mine. I had learned about Vincent van Gogh at a young age however it was not until I was told to illustrate an image using van Gogh’s abstract style with oil pastels in a high school art class, that I had subconsciously gained more respect towards art. At first, I struggled; I often tend to be more of a realist than idealist. However, connecting with and reviewing his Starry Night painting seemed to hold a deeper meaning within the color scheme of blue and yellow and strategically placed curvatures. The illustration held life, passion, and spoke to the viewer without words that some days you need to let go of any rigid stress,

Desmond Tutu says, “Hope is being able to see there is light despite all of the darkness.”

Vincent Van Gogh’s pull to paint locations and places that had a personal relationship with is well known to most. In the year 1889, Vincent Van Gogh provided us with the painting we all know too well, Starry Night, this painting represents the view Van Gogh had during his time hospitalized in the asylum located in Arles. This painting since the year of 1941, remains in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Throughout this artwork you can see the personal emotion that went into his work, from the boldness in color, his breaststrokes, and composition through out this piece. The Starry Night, to myself is a vast combination of many opposites; simple and complex, plainness and beauty, light and darkness.

Starry Night is a famous painting by Vincent Van Gogh. Starry Night was constructed in 1889. At the time of his existence, Van Gogh was not well known. Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime, and only became popular after his death like many other artists at the time. To fully understand this painting, one must know the personal life/struggles of the artist himself.

     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.