Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night

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.

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.

The faint lights from the stores on the shore, reflecting off the river from a distance under the bright, twinkling sky filled with stars of the Ursa Major constellation with a couple on the bank on the near shore star gazing as the small waves hit the bank near them. The picture described may sound familiar as it is one of Vincent van Gogh’s famous paintings, Starry Night Over the Rhone. It is an oil on canvas that resides in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris, France that is 72.5 centimeters by 92 centimeters and was based on the Rhone river in Arles, France looking out at the Trinquetaille bridge. Starry Night Over the Rhone has a sister painting that resides in New York, however, it was painted during his time at the Saint-Paul Asylum in the Saint-Remy-de-Providence.

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.

“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.

“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day .” He demonstrated this ideal through his painting “The Starry Night,” one of the most iconic paintings of nineteenth century. Through this painting, Vincent van Gogh shared a very personal experience with the viewer. The nature of the night became a symbolic image to van Gogh. The representation of the small town resembles the small scale of human life. The Church points directly upward, to the Heavens. Although van Gogh was not mentally stable, “The Starry Night” was created in moments of great clarity to him .

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.

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh has risen to the peak of artistic achievements. Although Van Gogh sold only one painting in his life, the aftermath of his work is enormous. Starry Night is one of the most well known images in modern culture as well as being one of the most replicated and sought after prints.

The date is March 30, 1853, when a child by the name Vincent Van Gogh was born. Happy were his parents after the demise of their first born son, they saw Vincent as pain reliever who will take away their incomprehensible pain and grieve for the loss of their son, so sure they were that they named him exactly as their deceased son. Vincent an artistic painter with over 2000 beautiful artworks was suffering silently for his own sanity, he thought he was a replacement child, some of his friends thought he reincarnated. This tortured him for decades and one starry night in July 29, 1890 at the age 37 he reached threshold, he took a gun and his painting brush on the other hand and he shot himself in the chest, it took him almost two days to die.

Vincent Van Gogh was born in the Netherlands on March 30, 1853. He pursued many other things in his life before deciding to become an artist. He was brought up in a religious atmosphere, being the son of a preacher. He was a preacher himself for a while in Borinage, a mining district in Belgium. At one point he wanted to dedicate his life to reaching out to those in poverty. At other points in his life he worked as an art salesman and a bookstore clerk. After being dismissed from preaching in Belgium, he remained there and began to study art. This period, his early Dutch period, was characterized by somber tones and sharp lighting. The most famous painting to come from this period was in 1885 and was called “The Potato Eaters”. In 1886, he joined his brother Theo in Paris. He was involved in the art world as well, as a manager of Goupil’s gallery. Van Gogh began to study with Cormon and his dark somber palette began to lighten. He started using short brush strokes and was leaning more towards the Impressionist style (Vincent Van Gogh Bio). Van Gogh had a dream of establishing an art school and traveled south to Arles to pursue that dream. He wanted his friends to join him, and Gauguin was the only one that did. His relationship with Gaugin did not end well though. It’s not certain exactly what happened, but there were disputes between the two of them and it ended with a portion of Van Gogh’s earlobe being cut off. Around this time, the end of

Van Gogh used many types of art to make his Starry Night painting. He used many dark colors, and he used line work. He also used shape, texture, form, value and space. He used line by how he painted the night sky. Also, the color he used was to set the mood of the painting. “ lines is one of the most important pieces of art in his work.” Van Gogh also used plenty of space by the way he painted the houses and the night sky. To make his painting look like it has texture he used a thick brush and gently glided it across his painting. The shape/from it took up the geometric shape of the buildings. The way used value is he mixed it up in many ways to create a dark but light kind of night

Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” is one of the most famous paintings in history. In all of his paintings he uses all of the elements of art especially in his painting “Starry Night”. The most obvious element he uses is line since the whole sky is made up of lines that turn into spirals. In the text it states, “ The artist also uses line to develop shape and form. He uses short,choppy lines to circle the stars and call attention to their shape.” He uses the lines to make two new elements and to emphasis certain things in the painting. In “Starry NIght” there are many different shades of blues and yellows that make up the night sky. When this happens it uses the two elements of color and value. In “Starry Night” texture is alo a very important

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 notoriously famous and is probably Vincent Van Gogh’s most well-known piece of art, but that is all for a reason. Van Gogh very unique curving lines throughout the work and they create a flow to the painting that is very somber and fascinating. The line quality of the work seems whimsical in ways yet intentional, the lines are not pressed in very hard on the painting, you can tell because there are color differences within the lines meaning Van Gogh made casual strokes to create the lines, yet at the same time they are definitely intentional as Van Gogh uses the color variations to combine with one another creating a very colorful arrangement on the canvas. All of the colors may be mellow and cool, but they are all very unique and different in their own ways. Van Gogh uses the actual stars in Starry Night to create a stark contrast to the rest of the scene. The stars shine bright yellow and orange in the night sky, drawing the viewers gaze and attention. Yet at the same time there is an ominous black object in the foreground of the painting, the object is said to be a cypress tree but it is no less interpreted for its possible deeper meanings. The painting uses these stars as the acting natural light for the painting and this is why the rest of the painting uses colors that are so cool, this is because Van Gogh wants clear contrasting values between the stars and dimly lit town. Van Gogh uses irregular shapes throughout the skyline and hills in the background

Not only were the colors and brush strokes considered symbolic to the way he felt, the subjects of his paintings were also symbolic themselves such as the cypress tree which were known as trees of the graveyard and mourning. It was van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” that many artists drew inspiration from and ventured out into nature because in the late nineteenth many artists were discontent with the modern city lights that took away from the beauty of nature. Therefore, many artists ventured out to as many places far away from city lights where they could observe nature which inspired their works from its psychological and spiritual harmony that would then be portrayed into their paintings. Van Gogh wanted to inspire and encourage others so he sought to achieve his goal through his night scenes in his artworks. “The Starry Night” became his prime example of his night effect that he was looking