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“Starry Night” van Gogh – In-Depth Analysis and Facts

Avatar for Alicia du Plessis

From a painting that was supposedly just a study of a starry night to becoming an overnight sensation by an artist who is immortalized and remembered for cutting off his own ear. This is of course the beloved Vincent van Gogh, who painted The Starry Night (1889). In this article, we will discuss this painting in more detail by looking at why it was painted and the stylistic elements that have kept it swirling in all our memories.

Table of Contents

  • 1 Artist Abstract: Who Was Vincent van Gogh?
  • 2.1.1 A Little Bit More About Post-Impressionism
  • 2.1.2 Paris, the Yellow House, and a Severed Ear
  • 2.1.3 Theo van Gogh
  • 3.1 Subject Matter
  • 3.2 A Matter of Swirls: Color and Light
  • 3.3 Perspective and Space
  • 3.4 Symbolism and Style
  • 3.5 Not to Be Confused With the Other Starry Night
  • 4 Reaching for the Stars
  • 5.1 Who Painted The Starry Night? 
  • 5.2 Where Was The Starry Night Painted?
  • 5.3 How Many Starry Night Paintings Are There?
  • 5.4 Where Is The Starry Night Painting Housed?
  • 5.5 How Much Is The Starry Night Worth?

Artist Abstract: Who Was Vincent van Gogh?

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 in the Netherlands. He attended a couple of boarding schools during his youth and worked as an art dealer at Goupil & Cie from 1869. Van Gogh was not a successful artist and had a mentally challenging life. Although his art developed as he matured as an artist, he nonetheless had various occasions where he was admitted to psychiatric hospitals. After a stint with Paul Gauguin, van Gogh also cut a part of his ear off . He sadly committed suicide on 27 July 1890 by shooting himself in the chest and only dying more than 24 hours afterward.

Starry Night Painter

The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh in Context

Although Vincent van Gogh was not a famous artist when he was alive, he left a legacy of artwork few, if any, can compare with. The Vincent van Gogh paintings collection is infused with the depth of his emotional, mental, and spiritual inner world. He was what we call a “tortured” artist and experienced considerable inner turmoil.

His art depicts bright and colorful landscapes and objects with expressive and dynamic brushstrokes.

Below we will explore how van Gogh brought his inner dimensions to life on his canvases, namely the painting The Starry Night (1889). We will first look at a contextual analysis and where van Gogh was at the time of painting this starry night. We will also discuss how van Gogh fit into the Post-Impressionist movement of the time.

Starry Night Original Painting

Lastly, we will provide a formal analysis of The Starry Night painting and place a telescopic view on the artist’s utilization of color, form, and perspective. There is a lot happening and swirling in his iconic painting and all of it adds to The Starry Night’s meaning. So, let us look further. 

Contextual Analysis: A Brief Socio-Historical Overview

When van Gogh painted The Starry Night in 1889, he was staying in the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole mental asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in the southern parts of France. The preceding events leading up to his admission to the hospital were quite tumultuous and involved a confrontation with his acquaintance and fellow Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, and van Gogh cutting off a part of his own ear. He reportedly experienced a severe psychotic break after these events and would have various more.

Where Was The Starry Night Painted

During his stay he had two rooms, one was a bedroom, and one was utilized as a painting studio. His subject matter was of the asylum and its surrounding gardens, although he was able to move around more than most of the other patients. His room, which was apparently east-facing, had a view of the French Alpilles mountain range, which inspired a lot of his landscapes.

However, his painting studio did not have a view of the mountains, but it is believed van Gogh painted a lot from memory, imagination, and other artworks.

A Little Bit More About Post-Impressionism

During the 1880s, several artists moved away from the realists’ approach of painting from nature and the world as they saw it. This approach is referred to as en plein air , which means “outdoors” in French. The Impressionists focused on portraying the real aspects of life and not so much the depiction of the more traditional and classic subject matter we see from Renaissance paintings.

Colors and brushwork were more expressive and artists were not focused on the type of stylistic elements like symmetry, order, and form. It is often described as an optical form of art because artists focused on how they perceived the natural world and painted it accordingly. One of the leading figures during this new and revolutionary modern period of art was Claude Monet. 

Paintings Before The Starry Night

There was no one set of rules for Post-Impressionists, which followed directly after, as they all approached their art in different ways and styles. However, a common thread was that artworks were generally more abstract and symbolic, not as focused on trying to depict the natural environment as the Impressionists were. Some artists like Paul Cézanne focused on how compositions relied on fundamental forms as he stated, “Treat nature in terms of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone”.

Artists like Paul Gauguin and van Gogh depicted their subject matter rooted in more emotional perspectives and symbolism.

Gauguin developed a style called Synthetism, which referred to the “synthesis” of all the influencing elements of what makes the artwork. This includes the formal qualities of colors and lines, the external subject matter, and the subjective feelings of the artist, and as mentioned earlier in the case of van Gogh, can be derived from imagination and memory.

Starry Night Inspiration

Paris, the Yellow House, and a Severed Ear

As per van Gogh’s invitation to join him, he and Paul Gauguin worked closely together in the French city called Arles during the 1880s. They rented and worked in the same space, which was referred to as the “Yellow House”, for a couple of months. Van Gogh moved to Arles from Paris.

Whilst in Paris, he lived with his brother Theo for a while and acquainted himself with the art society there. He also held and participated in several exhibitions.

Interestingly, during van Gogh’s time in Paris, he met several important figures from the Impressionist movement, namely, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet , Camille Pissarro, and Georges Seurat. These artists also influenced van Gogh’s style and, apparently, he utilized a lighter color scheme as a result.

Back to the Yellow House. This move was part of van Gogh’s goal to start a new community for artists in Arles, including his desire to have Gauguin there to be a part of it. It was Gauguin’s unique style and use of different colors from when he lived in Martinique that inspired both Vincent and Theo van Gogh who saw these paintings after Gauguin’s return to Paris.

Vincent van Gogh Paintings

The paintings were reportedly at the home of Gauguin’s acquaintance, Émile Schuffenecker. The brothers bought one of these paintings called The Mango Trees (1887) and a few other works and drawings. Importantly, Theo van Gogh became Gauguin’s art dealer and contributed to his artistic success in Paris. It is also believed that Gauguin’s venture to Martinique could have inspired Vincent van Gogh to also leave the city to find another place of artistic inspiration – in this case, Arles.

It was a tumultuous partnership between Gauguin and van Gogh because the artists were quite different in their styles.

Starry Night Artist

The two artists did in fact achieve a “colossal amount of work”, reportedly creating over 50 works collectively. But, sadly, their differences interrupted them and whatever happened between the two, Gauguin ended up leaving the yellow house and van Gogh severed part of his ear.

This brings us full circle again to the events of van Gogh’s stay at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole.

He apparently voluntarily admitted himself. His bouts of mental disruptions could have been part of the reason why it became difficult for Gauguin to remain at the house. However, the two acquaintances are remembered to have remained in touch with one another through writing letters; Theo van Gogh also continued supporting Gauguin as an artist through his work as an art dealer.

Theo van Gogh

Theo van Gogh is worth mentioning here because he was an important person in Vincent van Gogh’s life, not only because the two were brothers – Theo was younger than Vincent – but he also provided considerable financial support to Vincent as well as advice and guidance on various matters.

Starry Night Background

Because Theo was an art dealer, some may wonder how much is The Starry Night worth and where is The Starry Night painting now? However, this painting was handed over to Theo when Vincent died and eventually became part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1941 through the art dealer Paul Rosenberg.  

A lot of what we know about Vincent van Gogh’s artwork and life comes from around 600 letters between him and his brother, although he did write other letters to acquaintances such as Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, and Anthon van Rappard.

These letters were compiled into a book, published in 1914, by Theo’s wife, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger after the two brothers’ deaths. 

Formal Analysis: A Brief Compositional Overview

Below we explore van Gogh’s, The Starry Night further, first, we will look at what exactly we are looking at in this swirling nightscape of colors and brushstrokes, which will lead us on to discuss van Gogh’s stylistic elements like his use of color and technique.

Subject Matter

Let us start with the foreground, to the lower-left corner we see a dark cypress tree reaching up into the sky, it has been likened to long flames reaching upwards. We see the top tendril nestling itself in-between some of the large yellow orbs of stars in the sky.

Similarly, we can also notice the long spiral of the church situated in the middle ground of the composition. This is echoed with the cypress tree in the foreground.

Looking at the middle ground, we see what appears to be a small village, the said church as the central focal point. To the right, the village is flanked by a hilly area that flattens out from the right to the left side of the composition.

An interesting fact about the village is that it was believed to be created from van Gogh’s imagination, perhaps from sketches done of Saint-Rémy. Some sources also suggest it could have been from his memories of where he grew up, such as the church steeple resembles churches from Holland and apparently not churches found in France.

Starry Night Village Detail

The foreground and middle ground make up almost one-third of the painting, with the other two-thirds making up the vast expanse of blues that make the night sky. The way van Gogh depicted the night sky is bright and quite light; it is not a dark evening. This is undoubtedly the effect created by the moonlight and light from the stars, which appear as pulsating shining orbs of light. In fact, van Gogh emphasized their shine with auras of yellows and whites, but we will get to his color scheme further below.

We see around 11 stars in the sky with the crescent moon brightly shining, almost like a sun, in the top right corner. The night sky is lit up, giving us a clear view of the entire village and surrounding landscape.

A Matter of Swirls: Color and Light

Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night is a matter of swirls, and this is what makes his composition, and emphasizes the subject matter. There is significant dynamism in The Starry Night , created from the thick application of brushstrokes in flowing and circular lines.

Just look at the large swirls curling in the center of the sky. If we look for a while, we might think the sky will start moving almost like each swath of swirl moves in on the other like tectonic plates, but here they are, ephemeral in the sky.

Starry Night Swirls

Van Gogh creates a sense of movement with choppier white lines as the sky meets the mountains in the background – these seemingly move in unison as the mountain range becomes increasingly flatter. The white swathes appear like snow or fog creating a blanket over the hilltops, equally making the hilltops appear rhythmic. We see this effect in the brushstrokes delineating the Cypress tree in the foreground. Van Gogh brings the entire composition to life with the way he applies color and brushstrokes.

If we look at each star, and the moon, there is an aura of yellow and white surrounding it. Some are painted in white and others yellow, but we notice that van Gogh uses these colors in combination, which also creates softer tones of yellow, especially around the crescent-shaped moon.

This also points to van Gogh’s utilization of complementary colors and his cognizance of these formal elements that make a painting.

Additionally, in The Starry Night van Gogh also utilized darker hues of blue to create contrast. We see this in this starry night background near the hillside, especially to the far right in the middle ground where the hilltop meets the sky. This appears almost black in color, which is juxtaposed with that foggy white swath of the sky that we mentioned above.

Starry Night Meaning

The moon itself is a brighter shade of yellow and there is another star to the left of the composition that is also in a brighter yellow, it lies directly across from the moon. This star is Venus, the Morning Star. It is believed that van Gogh witnessed the Venus star in the morning while staring out of his window. In one of the letters to his brother Theo, Letter 777 (1889), van Gogh wrote:

“This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big.”

The application of colors and brushstrokes creates a moving textural composition and a study of the night. In fact, van Gogh referred to this painting as a “Night effect” in one of his letters to Theo ( Letter 806 , 1889). Van Gogh sent his “Night effect” along with another “consignment of canvases”.

Perspective and Space

Van Gogh’s The Starry Night is a rich combination of vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and circular lines, made from the utilization of thick brushstrokes and outlines. As we have stated, these create a sense of movement and quite visibly create a whole new perspective, one that is flowing and seemingly of another world, some would describe the painting as almost hallucinogenic.

Perspective is further highlighted by the looming verticality of the Cypress tree in the foreground. We see this verticality echoed in the steeple of the church in the near distance, which gives the impression of depth.

Starry Night Painting

This perspective plays directly with the spatial aspects of the composition, and the large expanse of the sky makes the village appear smaller and almost not as significant as the sky above, which seemingly takes precedence.

However, this is understandable as van Gogh’s intention seemed to be rooted in studying the night sky and how to stylistically depict this.

Symbolism and Style

There are several ideas around The Starry Night meaning. Some believe van Gogh painted The Starry Night as a symbol of his inner turmoil, especially regarding the Cypress tree in the foreground, which supposedly symbolizes death. However, it is suggested he painted the Cypress tree for the purposes of stylistic study and not so much for the inherent cultural meaning of it.

Van Gogh mentioned studying the depiction of Cypress trees just like he has with wheatfields, in one of his letters to Theo. In Letter 783 , 1883, he wrote about ideas he had and that a “wheatfield or a cypress are well worth the effort of looking at them from close at hand”. He further explained about the Cypress tree, saying:

“[they] still preoccupy me; I’d like to do something with them like the canvases of the sunflowers because it astonishes me that no one has yet done them as I see them.”

Starry Night Painting Detail

In The Starry Night , van Gogh shows us his personal expression even though this is a night study of the natural environment. This touches on his stylistic experimentations of the time. It also includes how his colleagues like Gauguin approached painting because while van Gogh was more inclined to paint scenes en plein air , Gauguin painted more abstracted artworks. 

This was a matter of question for van Gogh as he also wrote about it in one of his letters to another colleague, Émile Bernard, where he explained that he “allowed” himself to be “led astray into abstraction” when Gauguin and he lived and worked together.

He further explained that his painting was a failure, saying that he “once again” allowed himself to be “led astray into reaching for stars that are too big”.

Theo van Gogh also commented on The Starry Night and Vincent’s veer towards a somewhat different style. He remarked in one of his letters ( Letter 813 , 1889): “I clearly sense what preoccupies you in the new canvases like the village in the moonlight or the mountains, but I feel that the search for style takes away the real sentiment of things”. He then continued that he could see the “same preoccupations” with Gauguin’s paintings, which just showed more “memories of the Japanese, the Egyptians, etc.” 

Ultimately, Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night painting has been the topic of numerous art historical postulations and many point to this painting as being a symbol of van Gogh’s expression of a higher realm of existence.

Starry Night Detail

The swirls have been believed to be van Gogh’s depiction of the cosmos as well as possibly the wind. Martin Bailey, a reporter who is also known as a specialist on Vincent van Gogh, has presented the theory that the artist was inspired by the waves we see in the Japanese painter, Katsushika Hokusai’s woodblock print called The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1831).

Apparently, van Gogh was an avid admirer of the Japanese style and a collector of Japanese art. This is also important because during the middle of the 1800s up to the early 1900s, the Japonism style, especially the Ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock prints, was significantly influential in European art styles.

Van Gogh and many other artists from the Impressionist movement were influenced by it, especially how perspective and space were utilized as well as how colors were applied in bright tones.

Not to Be Confused With the Other Starry Night

Vincent van Gogh painted the above-mentioned The Starry Night in 1889, however, this is part of a series of other Vincent van Gogh paintings of night scenes by the artist, these are typically known as the Nocturne series. He painted Starry Night Over the Rhȏne in 1888. This version is the River Rhȏne in Arles.

In it we see two figures standing in the foreground on the river bank. We also notice the loose use of brushstrokes and colors depicting how the light from the city reflects on the river and we see the yellow orbs of stars in the sky we have come to know so well from his later The Starry Night painting. 

Van Gogh painted this starry night background scene outside using the light from a gas lamp. This is quite different from how he painted the later version, which was completely inside, in his art studio. 

Other Starry Night Painting

The other painting in van Gogh’s night series is called Café Terrace at Night (1888), which was also painted in Arles at the Place du Forum. Here we see a view of a cafe to the left with the warm glow from the interior lighting. We also see the illuminated night sky above with sparkling stars and the road below moving into darkness further ahead.

Van Gogh wrote about his composition and enthusiasm about painting the scene at night in one of his letters to Willemien van Gogh, his sister. In Letter 678, 1888 , he explains the colors he utilized to paint the darkness, “Now there’s a painting of night without black. With nothing but beautiful blue, violet, and green, and in these surroundings the lighted square is colored pale sulfur, lemon green. I enormously enjoy painting on the spot at night”. In the same letter, van Gogh also mentioned his eagerness about painting the starry sky next, as this was one of his earlier night scenes. He explains:

“I definitely want to paint a starry sky now. It often seems to me that the night is even more richly colored than the day, colored in the most intense violets, blues, and greens”.

Other Vincent van Gogh Paintings

This is a testament to how van Gogh enjoyed experimenting with different colors to achieve the effects of not only different types of light at night, whether natural or artificial as we see from inside the café but daylight too. He also painted from the natural environment around him, testament again to the Impressionistic style, however, he combined this en plein air approach with his emotions and how he experienced these surroundings.

Reaching for the Stars

Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh created hundreds of paintings and sketches throughout his life as an artist, but he did not achieve wide success like other artists. Only after his death did he become popular, and sometimes his paintings even stole the show, The Starry Night (1889) discussed in the article above was one of them. Now considered a masterpiece from the Post-Impressionism art movement, The Starry Night is the star of the show and a 21st-century pop cultural scene easily spotted on memorabilia ranging from mugs to magnets.

Vincent van Gogh did not have an easy life, he experienced considerable mental challenges and struggles that undoubtedly affected the way he made his art, and possibly even enhanced his own personal style. He was a man deeply devoted to depicting beautiful scenes of the natural world in rich textures and colors that not only showed his expressive artistic style, but also his inner world.

This inner world was seemingly just like his use of complementary colors, a mix of inner turmoil, but not without a mix of his sincere appreciation of the beauty of the world he experienced during the day and night. Vincent van Gogh was sadly his own victim, committing suicide in the end and leaving all his artwork to his brother Theo van Gogh, but it was his collection of artworks that continued his legacy and lives on for him.

Take a look at our The Starry Night  painting webstory here!

Frequently Asked Questions

Who painted the starry night  .

The Starry Night (1889) painting is a famous oil painting by Vincent van Gogh, who was part of the Post-Impressionism art movement during the 19th century.  

Where Was The Starry Night Painted?

The Starry Night (1889) was painted while Vincent van Gogh was staying at the mental institution called Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in the town called Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, which is in France. Many sources suggest van Gogh painted this scene from memory, imagination, and other works of art. It was also painted in his studio at the asylum, which did not have a view of the mountains. However, his bedroom window, which was in a separate room, had a view of the mountains. 

How Many Starry Night Paintings Are There?

Vincent van Gogh completed two paintings with similar titles depicting night scenes (although there were others exploring the nighttime). His first rendition was called Starry Night Over the Rhône (1888), which was a depiction of the Rhône River located in Arles where van Gogh lived at the time. However, this painting should not be confused with another titled The Starry Night (1889), which was when the artist lived in the mental asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

Where Is The Starry Night Painting Housed?

The 1889 version of The Starry Night by van Gogh is now housed in the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City. The Starry Night original painting was initially in Theo van Gogh’s possessions and then after Theo’s death, it was the property of his wife. Through different hands, The Starry Night eventually found its way to the French art dealer Paul Rosenberg, from whom the MOMA acquired it in 1941.

How Much Is The Starry Nigh t Worth?

The Starry Night original painting by Vincent van Gogh, painted in 1889, is estimated to be worth over $100 million. However, this painting is one of van Gogh’s masterpieces and it can also be argued that there cannot be a price for it – it is priceless. 

alicia du plessis

Alicia du Plessis is a multidisciplinary writer. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in Art History and Classical Civilization, as well as two Honors, namely, in Art History and Education and Development, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. For her main Honors project in Art History, she explored perceptions of the San Bushmen’s identity and the concept of the “Other”. She has also looked at the use of photography in art and how it has been used to portray people’s lives.

Alicia’s other areas of interest in Art History include the process of writing about Art History and how to analyze paintings. Some of her favorite art movements include Impressionism and German Expressionism. She is yet to complete her Masters in Art History (she would like to do this abroad in Europe) having given it some time to first develop more professional experience with the interest to one day lecture it too.

Alicia has been working for artincontext.com since 2021 as an author and art history expert. She has specialized in painting analysis and is covering most of our painting analysis.

Learn more about Alicia du Plessis and the Art in Context Team .

Cite this Article

Alicia, du Plessis, ““Starry Night” van Gogh – In-Depth Analysis and Facts.” Art in Context. October 21, 2021. URL: https://artincontext.org/starry-night-van-gogh/

du Plessis, A. (2021, 21 October). “Starry Night” van Gogh – In-Depth Analysis and Facts. Art in Context. https://artincontext.org/starry-night-van-gogh/

du Plessis, Alicia. ““Starry Night” van Gogh – In-Depth Analysis and Facts.” Art in Context , October 21, 2021. https://artincontext.org/starry-night-van-gogh/ .

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“Analysis of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night”, Essay Example

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The “Starry Night”, painted by Vincent Van Gogh is an oil painting on canvas measuring 73 x 92 that was created in June of 1889. Starry Night has come to be one of the most well-known paintings in modern day culture and one of the most replicated prints in art. Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime; however, he has come to be one of the most famous artists of all times. Vincent Van Gogh was born in Holland in 1853 and traveled to Paris in 1886 where he began to paint in short brushstrokes like the impressionist during that time period. Van Gogh was troubled with some personal issues, possibly a brain disease or lead poisoning and ended up cutting a portion of his ear lobe off. (Van Gogh Gallery) He was admitted to Remy a psychiatric hospital, called Saint Remy. It was at Saint Remy where he created the famous masterpiece, “Starry Night”. (Life of Van Gogh) His troubled personal life explains why the picture was a nocturnal piece with an underlying drama to it. The elements in the painting of lines, lighting, space, color, principles of balance and focal point all illustrate the drama that the artist was undergoing during his creation of the “Starry Night”.

Van Gogh paints a night sky and swirls the clouds and lights the clouds to shine their own luminescence, as well as a shining bright crescent moon. The lines in the sky of the painting are interesting because it keeps the viewer’s focus moving across the painting. In addition, the lines curve and create an onward movement that attracts the viewer and keeps them involved with the painting. Furthermore, Van Gogh uses unique thick brush strokes that are very obvious to the viewer. It has been hypothesized that his harsh brush strokes are in relation to his mental status while he was painting; however, all of his paintings do show consistency with his unique brushstroke. The ironic thing about the hard brushstrokes and the meaning of the brushstrokes is that Vincent himself felt more at ease with that technique in painting. For instance, he wrote a letter to his brother, Theo, and stated, “I should not be surprised if you like the Starry Night and the Ploughed Fields, there is a greater quiet about them than in the other canvases” (Artble). Even though there were harsh brushstrokes and the painting was set at night, Van Gogh made portions of the painting bright and filed with starts. This brings us to the lighting in the painting.

Within the brushstrokes, as mentioned previously, there is light that guides the viewer through the dark night. This illustrates Van Gogh’s favor for nighttime. He makes the sky extremely powerful as it sits above a small town. He swirls the colors and lines that incorporates both the color and light that he uses throughout the painting. The sky is painted with white clouds and bright stars. The main lighting in the painting is the bright shining starts and the crescent moon. The shining stars illuminate the sky, as well as the large crescent moon. The heaviness of the brushstrokes and the rich colors give a sense of chaos. There are also lights shining brightly from the windows of the houses in the town below, but it looks more peaceful than the chaotic sky. It was been thought that this was Van Gogh’s way of making peace with his illness and finding his way to heaven. The light in the sky and houses therefore represent hope that even in a dark night, there is light. Basically, he was giving himself hope through the lighting exemplified in the painting, telling himself that no matter how dark a time is there is still hope. In addition, the letter written to his brother indicates that the lighting made him feel calm and relaxed. (Artble)

In addition to the brushstrokes and lighting, Van Gogh creates spacing in his painting that allows the viewer to move their eyes between the stars and the curves in the sky to create a dot-to dot effect (Artble). The spacing creates a fluid movement of brushstrokes resulting in a calm and beautiful piece. It was indicated during the Van Gogh’s time, the Impressionist painters were not focusing on this type of spacing in their art work, making Van Gogh’s work unique and extremely distinct for the 19 th century. (Artble)

Van Gogh’s chose the color yellow and blue as the dominant colors in the painting. He also used these colors in many other of his later pieces of art. As mentioned previously, it is said that he was suffering from some sort of brain illness or possibly lead poisoning and it is rationalized that is what influenced Van Gogh to use such different colors in his art work for that time period. He used the bright yellow paint along with white to create the spiral clouds in order to bring attention of the viewer to the sky portion of the painting. He also uses green and other colors in the town, such as orange and red to offset and make the yellow stand out more. Overall, the choice of the bright and rich colors of the night is what draws so much attention and captivates the viewers in this unique piece of art.

There are different forms that are used in the painting, including balance. The balance in the painting is shown through the movement of the brushstrokes that starts on the left end of the painting towards the center, where it becomes the main focus of the painting. The balance is also shown through the harmony that is created with the numerous stars that are in the sky and the houses that are represented below. In addition, balance is made through the position of the cypress trees and the crescent moon in the sky. The combination of the moon, houses, and rolling hills is what ultimately creates a sense of balance in the painting. (Scribd)

The focus of the painting is the lines. The lines in the painting are two different types, a long-term bend and a short-term bend that alternates giving the viewer an engaging feeling. Looking at the painting, the viewer can focus on the harsh brush strokes of the alternating lines and focus on the bright colors made of those lines. The main focus of the Starry Night also leads the viewer to think about how different Van Gogh’s technique was compared to other artists during the 19 th century. While looking at the Starry Night it is easy to look at all the focal points in the painting and realize that Van Gogh was an interesting individual and used his emotions and whatever he was going through at the time to paint his pictures, without following the rules of the time. While he was alive he only sold one painting and now many of his works of art are masterpieces. (Scribd)

There are different reasons why Van Gogh may have painted the Starry Night in the manner that he did. For one, since it was painted during his stay at Saint Remy, it is supposedly his version of his view from his room there. In regard to the form, objects, color, lighting and technique, it has been theorized that both his mental status and the socioeconomic status of the culture during that time period may have influenced the artwork. For instance, he was just hospitalized for cutting off his lobe and he uses harsh brushstrokes to represent the dark night. The cypress trees in the painting give a more gentle approach and may represent the townspeople who were farmers during that period, in which he may have thought of hard working individuals. On the left side of the Starry Night painting there is a large dark object that could represent negativity or rejection. Perhaps Van Gogh added that in the painting to describe his feelings of rejection from society and the lack of interest in his paintings at the time. (Scribd) Overall, the Starr Night is an amazing painting with great depth and unique technique. It is one of the paintings of over all time that majority of individuals, whether educated in art or not, recognize or have hanging in their home. The uniqueness of the color, lighting and brush strokes alone represent a unique masterpiece.

Works Cited

Arble. Starry Night Analysis. Web. 2012. Retrieved on April 1, 2012 from: http://www.artble.com/artists/vincent_van_gogh/paintings/starry_night/more_information/analysis

Life of Van Gough. Analysis of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. WOeb. 2011Retrieved April 1, 2012 from: http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/bio.html.

Scribd. Web. Retrieved on April 1, 2012 form: http://www.scribd.com/doc/57425684/Vincent-Van-Gogh-The-Starry-Night

Van Gogh Gallery. Vincent van Gogh: Biography. Web. 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2012 from: http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/bio.html.

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Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night

A rare night landscape

The curving, swirling lines of hills, mountains, and sky, the brilliantly contrasting blues and yellows, the large, flame-like cypress trees, and the thickly layered brushstrokes of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night are ingrained in the minds of many as an expression of the artist’s turbulent state-of-mind. Van Gogh’s canvas is indeed an exceptional work of art, not only in terms of its quality but also within the artist’s oeuvre, since in comparison to favored subjects like irises, sunflowers, or wheat fields, night landscapes are rare. Nevertheless, it is surprising that The Starry Night has become so well known. Van Gogh mentioned it briefly in his letters as a simple “study of night” or ”night effect.”

Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm (The Museum of Modern Art; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night , 1889, oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm (The Museum of Modern Art; photo: Steven Zucker , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

His  brother Theo, manager of a Parisian art gallery and a gifted connoisseur of contemporary art, was unimpressed, telling Vincent, “I clearly sense what preoccupies you in the new canvases like the village in the moonlight… but I feel that the search for style takes away the real sentiment of things” (813, 22 October 1889). Although Theo van Gogh felt that the painting ultimately pushed style too far at the expense of true emotive substance, the work has become iconic of individualized expression in modern landscape painting.

Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night over the Rhone, 1888, oil on canvas, 72 x 92 cm (Musée d'Orsay, Paris)

Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night over the Rhone , 1888, oil on canvas, 72 x 92 cm ( Musée d’Orsay, Paris )

Technical challenges

Van Gogh had had the subject of a blue night sky dotted with yellow stars in mind for many months before he painted The Starry Night in late June or early July of 1889. It presented a few technical challenges he wished to confront—namely the use of contrasting color and the complications of painting en plein air (outdoors) at night—and he referenced it repeatedly in letters to family and friends as a promising if problematic theme. “A starry sky, for example, well – it’s a thing that I’d like to try to do,” Van Gogh confessed to the painter Emile Bernard in the spring of 1888, “but how to arrive at that unless I decide to work at home and from the imagination?” (596, 12 April 1888).

As an artist devoted to working whenever possible from prints and illustrations or outside in front of the landscape he was depicting, the idea of painting an invented scene from imagination troubled Van Gogh. When he did paint a first example of the full night sky in Starry Night over the Rhône (1888, oil on canvas, 72.5 x 92 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris), an image of the French city of Arles at night, the work was completed outdoors with the help of gas lamplight, but evidence suggests that his second Starry Night was created largely if not exclusively in the studio.

the starry night painting essay

Following the dramatic end to his short-lived collaboration with the painter Paul Gauguin in Arles in 1888 and the infamous breakdown during which he mutilated part of his own ear, Van Gogh was ultimately hospitalized at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, an asylum and clinic for the mentally ill near the village of Saint-Rémy. During his convalescence there, Van Gogh was encouraged to paint, though he rarely ventured more than a few hundred yards from the asylum’s walls.

Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy, France (photo: Emdee, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy, France (photo: Emdee , CC BY-SA 3.0)

the starry night painting essay

Church (detail), Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night , 1889, oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm. (The Museum of Modern Art, New York; photo: Steven Zucker , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Besides his private room, from which he had a sweeping view of the mountain range of the Alpilles, he was also given a small studio for painting. Since this room did not look out upon the mountains but rather had a view of the asylum’s garden, it is assumed that Van Gogh composed The Starry Night using elements of a few previously completed works still stored in his studio, as well as aspects from imagination and memory. It has even been argued that the church’s spire in the village is somehow more Dutch in character and must have been painted as an amalgamation of several different church spires that van Gogh had depicted years earlier while living in the Netherlands.

Van Gogh also understood the painting to be an exercise in deliberate stylization, telling his brother, “These are exaggerations from the point of view of arrangement, their lines are contorted like those of ancient woodcuts” (805, c. 20 September 1889). Similar to his friends Bernard and Gauguin, van Gogh was experimenting with a style inspired in part by medieval woodcuts , with their thick outlines and simplified forms.

the starry night painting essay

Stars (detail), Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night , 1889, oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm (The Museum of Modern Art, New York; photo: Steven Zucker , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The colors of the night sky

On the other hand, The Starry Night evidences Van Gogh’s extended observation of the night sky. After leaving Paris for more rural areas in southern France, Van Gogh was able to spend hours contemplating the stars without interference from gas or electric city street lights, which were increasingly in use by the late nineteenth century. “This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big” 777, c. 31 May – 6 June 1889). As he wrote to his sister Willemien van Gogh from Arles,

It often seems to me that the night is even more richly colored than the day, colored with the most intense violets, blues and greens. If you look carefully, you’ll see that some stars are lemony, others have a pink, green, forget-me-not blue glow. And without laboring the point, it’s clear to paint a starry sky it’s not nearly enough to put white spots on blue-black. (678, 14 September 1888)

Van Gogh followed his own advice, and his canvas demonstrates the wide variety of colors he perceived on clear nights.

Invention, remembrance and observation

the starry night painting essay

Impasto and brush strokes (detail), Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night , 1889, oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm (The Museum of Modern Art, New York; photo: Steven Zucker , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Arguably, it is this rich mixture of invention, remembrance, and observation combined with Van Gogh’s use of simplified forms, thick impasto, and boldly contrasting colors that has made the work so compelling to subsequent generations of viewers as well as to other artists. Inspiring and encouraging others is precisely what Van Gogh sought to achieve with his night scenes. When Starry Night over the Rhône was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, an important and influential venue for vanguard artists in Paris, in 1889, Vincent told Theo he hoped that it “might give others the idea of doing night effects better than I do.” The Starry Night , his own subsequent “night effect,” became a foundational image for Expressionism as well as perhaps the most famous painting in Van Gogh’s oeuvre.

Additional resources:

This painting at MoMA

This painting at the Google Art Project

The Starry Night from MoMA Multimedia

This painting from MoMA Learning

Smarthistory images for teaching and learning:

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Artble

Vincent van Gogh

  • Style and Technique
  • Critical Reception
  • Bedroom in Arles
  • Café Terrace at Night
  • Portrait d'Eugene Boch
  • Self-portrait with Straw Hat
  • Story-Theme

Starry Night

  • Starry Night Over the Rhone
  • The Flowering Orchard
  • The Potato Eaters

Starry Night Analysis

Starry Night

  • Date of Creation:
  • Height (cm):
  • Length (cm):
  • Characteristics:
  • Post-impressionism
  • Art Movement:
  • Post-Impressionism
  • Created by:
  • Current Location:
  • New York, New York
  • Museum of Modern Art
  • Starry Night Analysis Page's Content
  • Composition
  • Use of color
  • Use of Light
  • Mood, Tone and Emotion
  • Brushstroke

Starry Night Composition

Starry Night

The night sky depicted by van Gogh in the Starry Night painting is brimming with whirling clouds, shining stars, and a bright crescent moon. The setting is one that viewers can relate to and van Gogh´s swirling sky directs the viewer´s eye around the painting, with spacing between the stars and the curving contours creating a dot-to-dot effect. These internal elements ensure fluidity and such contours were important for the artist even though they were becoming less significant for other Impressionists. Thus Starry Night´s composition was distinct from the Impressionist technique of the 19th century. The artist was aware that his Starry Night composition was somewhat surreal and stylized and in a letter to his brother he even referred to "exaggerations in terms of composition. " The vivid style chosen by van Gogh was unusual - he chose lines to portray this night scene when silhouettes would have been a more obvious choice. In Starry Night contoured forms are a means of expression and they are used to convey emotion. Many feel that van Gogh´s turbulent quest to overcome his illness is reflected in the dimness of the night sky. The village is painted with dark colors but the brightly lit windows create a sense of comfort. The village is peaceful in comparison to the dramatic night sky and the silence of the night can almost be felt in Starry Night. The steeple dominates the village and symbolizes unity in the town. In terms of composition, the church steeple gives an impression of size and isolation. In the left foreground is a curvy cypress tree which is typically associated with mourning. It is painted in the same way as the sky with fluid lines which enhances the flow of the Starry Night painting well as its easiness on the eye.

Starry Night Use of color

Starry Night

Van Gogh´s choice of color in Starry Night has been much debated, particularly the dominance of yellow in this and other late works. Some believe van Gogh may have been suffering from lead poisoning or a type of brain disease and that this explains his strange use of color in later paintings. Van Gogh's use of white and yellow creates a spiral effect and draws attention to the sky. Vertical lines such as the cypress tree and church tower softly break up the composition without retracting from the powerful night sky depicted in Starry Night. Vincent van Gogh´s choice of dark blues and greens were complemented with touches of mint green showing the reflection of the moon. The buildings in the centre of the painting are small blocks of yellows, oranges, and greens with a dash of red to the left of the church. The dominance of blue in Starry Night is balanced by the orange of the night sky elements. Van Gogh paints the rich colors of the night and this corresponds with the true character of this Starry Night, whereby colors are used to suggest emotion.

Starry Night Use of Light

Starry Night

Van Gogh´s passion for nighttime is evident in the Starry Night painting, where the powerful sky sits above the quiet town. It seems that van Gogh is contrasting life and death with luminous stars and a gloomy, peaceful village. The main light sources are the bright stars and crescent moon.

Starry Night Mood, Tone and Emotion

Starry Night

There are various interpretations of Starry Night and one is that this canvas depicts hope. It seems that van Gogh was showing that even with a dark night such as this it is still possible to see light in the windows of the houses. Furthermore, with shining stars filling the sky, there is always light to guide you. It seems that van Gogh was finally being cured of his illness and had essentially found his heaven. He also knew that in death he would be at peace and further portrays this by using bold colors in the Starry Night painting. In a letter to his brother, Theo, van Gogh comments: "I should not be surprised if you liked the Starry Night and the Ploughed Fields, there is a greater quiet about them than in the other canvases. " Later in the letter he makes reference to Leo Tolstoys book My Religion and its lack of belief in resurrection. Such fleeting mentions of religion echoed van Goghs feelings towards the subject at this time; he could neither forget it nor totally accept it. Despite this, his use of the word 'quiet' and reference to Tolstoys book indicates that the night sky made him feel calm and brought to mind eternity. Starry Night shows the vast power of nature and the church spire and cypress tree - representing man and nature - both point to the heavens.

Starry Night Brushstroke

Starry Night

In Starry Night van Gogh´s unique, thick brush strokes are very much obvious and it´s possible that his severe attacks further dramatized his brush work. However, there is a consistency to his technique that adds even more depth as well as a rich texture to this work of art.

Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” Painting Analysis

Introduction, art analysis, art evaluation.

The painting for this assignment is Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night . He painted this masterpiece in 1889 while locked up in an asylum found in Saint Remy (MoMA, n.d.). The painting got completed a year before he committed suicide, perhaps a side-effect of his mental illness. The Starry Night, his magnum opus, illustrates a small town under a beaming blue night sky full of glistening stars. Many assume the painting was the artist’s view from his window, but it was only an inspiration to him. The evidence lies in the small town which was not visible from his window. The work was virtually accessible through the Museum of Modern Arts in New York (MoMA, n.d.).

The Starry Night

The artist’s choice of medium was painting with oil using short brushstrokes, which seem to make the painting come to life. Another consequence was Vincent van Gogh’s ability to apply the elements of color, light, use of line, space, and rhythm. When viewing the painting, it is easy to notice how the blue night sky covers about two-thirds of the upper part, which feels like a cool color. The use of shapes is clear in the crescent moon on the far right, the round stars, and the lively Venus close to the middle (MoMA, n.d.). The use of lines gets depicted by the slanted details of the mountains and the town’s rooftops. There is a clear dark and bright contrasts that make the tree in the foreground more vivid. Amid the rhythm created by the flow of wind in the middle of the painting, it is easy to spot a spire reaching upwards towards the sky.

The Starry Night is an excellent post-impressionist era masterpiece. It entails successfully applying vivid colors, geometric forms, unnatural color compositions, and distinctive texture from short brushstrokes. It was an era that paved the way for a modern radical movement labeled abstract expressionism (The Art Story, 2013). The symbolism makes it open to interpretation which reaffirms its post-expressionism foundation. Among all the pieces the artist was able to draw, this is the most iconic one today and has influenced many Western artists. When it got finished, it was not valuable, with records stating van Gogh sold one piece of art (Marder, 2018). The irony is that today, a Van Gogh can go for millions.

The Starry Night is a clever piece from the artist’s imagination. Vincent van Gogh was locked in an asylum of his own volition, and during his time in a study, he decided to put the innovative ideas in his head onto a canvas. It makes one criticize his painting expressively, given his state of mind at the time, especially with the amount of symbolism in the art. While remaining ravishingly beautiful to observe and capable of moving one into introspection, there was no social cause to it. The elements come together to depict personal feelings or emotions, and for all we know, it may have most likely been a foreshadowing of his looming death, which is clear in all the signs of darkness, the night sky, and the spire headed towards the sky.

The experience of handling this assignment was surreal, and visiting a museum could have topped many things this year. The observation and analysis of The Starry Night is an assignment that has allowed me to reflect on being hopeful about the future. The dark elements contrasted with very bright glimpses go to show that van Gogh attempted to communicate the need to see the bright side even when it all seems gloomy.

The Art Story. (2013). Post-impressionism . Web.

Marder, L. (2018). Did van Gogh really sell only one painting during his life? ThoughtCo. Web.

MoMA. (n.d.). Vincent van Gogh The Starry Night Saint Remy, June 1889 . Web.

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the starry night painting essay

Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” Painting

Introduction, original piece of art, personal art piece, connection between the two paintings.

The Starry Night is a recognized masterpiece by the prominent Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. This painting has influenced many works of art in the 20 th century as well as some modern artists. In this paper, after a short outline of The Starry Night , I present my own painting inspired by the work of Van Gogh. The main aim of this paper is to understand The Starry Night better by reflecting on my piece of art.

Original Piece of Art.

The Starry Night was written by Vincent van Gogh in 1889 during his captivity in the mental hospital at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The painting itself is based on the view from the artist’s room(Richman, 2019).In fact, van Gogh created many versions of this view, but The Starry Night is the only nocturnal one. However, the letters of Van Gogh show that he was passionate about the night(Scott, 2019). While the artist was in the asylum, he was not able to paint during the night and thus, created his masterpiece by memory in the daytime.

Personal Art Piece.

This painting represents my personal reflections on van Gogh’s The Starry Night . I have decided to call this piece Eternity , as it was the main topic I was thinking about while looking at The Starry Night . The curls, which display eternity, are painted with a pencil so that they are not very visible. The green strokes symbolize the fact that humans have to struggle for access to eternal life. Green is the color of life on Earth, and these why the curls are overshadowed by the strokes.

I have already mentioned that, in my view, the confrontation between eternal and mortal life is the main theme of The Starry Night . It is possible to divide this painting into two parts: the first one shows the sky with stars, and the second depicts a village in the valley. There is also a cypress tree that might symbolize life after death. The sky on the painting occupies more place than the village, which means that van Gogh believed in the victory of eternal life over mortal. In my painting, one can also find the signs of both kinds of life, but it seems that my message is slightly different. I believe that the frailty of human existence prevails over eternity.

Van Gogh used bright colors to emphasize the luminescence of the stars in the night sky. One can find some lights in the village houses as well, but it is clear that the stars grab the attention of the viewer. I used another painting technique in order to express my main idea. Although the curls in my painting are partly borrowed from The Starry Night , I tried to use a pencil to make them faint and stress the strokes at the same time. I used a green marker to make the strokes visible and perceivable.

It is evident that my piece of art cannot be compared to The Starry Night by van Gogh. However, I did not attempt to create a masterpiece but rather tried to reflect on the original painting by creating a personal one. I have found out that van Gogh tried to depict the discrepancy between eternal and mortal life. I took the main idea of van Gogh’s work of art but interpreted it in another way. I tried to show that eternal life can hardly be noticed behind earthly affairs. Thus, I used slightly different materials and compositions for creating my work of art.

Richman, K. (2019). How van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” came to be and continues to inspire artists . Web.

Scott, D. (2019). A closer look at “The Starry Night”by Vincent van Gogh . Web.

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Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” Research Paper

Introduction.

One of the most popular, most respected, and most controversial visual artists of all time, Vincent Van Gogh remains an enigma and an inspiration to many artists who are not after fame and money decades after his works are first recognized. He inspired many works of art including pop music that until today use his story or themes in their compositions (Giancarlo Scalla, Don McLean, Joe Satriani).

Van Gogh’s Starry Night is also one of the most popular artworks of all time displayed today at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, reproduced worldwide numerous times. It is considered his opus.

This paper shall try to provide an overview of Van Gogh’s Starry Night as a work of art with a personal narrative.

Biographical Information

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born March 30 1853 and died July 29, 1890. He is a Dutch post-impressionist artist. He was born in Groot-Zundert in the province of North Brabant in the Netherlands. His parents are Anna Cornelia Carbentus and Theodorus van Gogh, a minister. Art and religion was a major preoccupation of the family. At age 15, he became an art dealer and was quite successful. He later became a Methodist minister’s assistant (Hammacher, 1985, p 61). Van Gogh became an art dealer with Goupil & Cie in The Hague. He later went to England to do unpaid work as a supply teacher and started sketching the harbor in Ramsgate. In a temporary post as a missionary in the village of Petit Wastes in Belgium, he recorded peasant miners’ lives in his drawings. Theo his younger brother advised him to take up arts by 1880. He went to Brussels to study with Dutch artist Wilhelm Roelofs who later encouraged van Gogh to study at the Royal Academy of Art. Van Gogh detested formal art education and most many forms of formalities.

He was further encouraged by his cousin-in-law painter Anton Mauve. In Nuenen, North Brabant in the Netherlands, in his parent’s home, Van Gogh painted with dark brown and using somber earth tones and in two years, he completed about 200 oil paintings, drawings, and watercolors.

In November 1885, van Gogh went to Antwerp and studied color theory using Peter Paul Reubens’ works, adding the colors carmine, cobalt, and emerald green (Hammacher, 1985, p 32). He was later exposed to Impressionist artists’ works and became friends with many Post-impressionist painters of his time in Paris. He later is said to have inspired Expressionism, of adding dimension aside from actual images to add emotion to works of art.

Artist’s Place

As an artist, Van Gogh was not much of a celebrity during his time unlike many other artist-celebrities of his caliber who enjoyed their place in society. Van Gogh was from a family of religious workers and mainly, art dealers. He had been exposed to Impressionism which was prevalent at that time. He saw how art was commercialized and resented it, but he had been a successful art dealer. He later on painted as a Post-impressionist artist but influenced expressionism that mostly came after his time. Van Gogh is considered one pioneer in his style using vivid colors and bold strokes, his swirling patterns notably, that defied prevailing norms in his time.

Title, Dimensions, and Type of Medium

The Starry Night is an oil on canvass painting done in 1889, with 73 cm X 92 cm in diameter (or 28 2/3” X 36 ¼”).

The work is considered a Post-impressionist, landscape done while Van Gogh was confined in a Sanitarium in Arles. It depicts the night view overlooking the village. It has been seen as a result of a private mystical experience. Soth (1986) believed it was a biblical episode, therefore religious, related to the Agony in the Garden. In his letter to his friend Emile Bernard, Van Gogh said, “The imagination is certainly a faculty which we must develop, one which alone can lead us to the creation of a more exalting and consoling nature than the single glance at reality – which in our sight is ever-changing, passing like a flash of lightning – can let us perceive… A starry sky, for instance — look that is something I should like to try to do,” (qtd by Soth, 1986, p 301).

He rendered several starry night paintings including the Café Terrace at Night and Starry Night Over the Rhone.

He was in the hospital St. Paul de Mausole at St. Remy when he painted Starry Night over an imaginative landscape. He stayed at the hospital for several weeks and sketched at the garden or from his cell window. Precisely, it was said to be painted between June 16 and 18 1889. It is drawn what he could see around and about him and from his imagination or memory bank. It is unclear for much of his work is generally religious or personal, but I would rather categorize it as personal in a way that it is depicted not as can be seen from the same point of reference or view but as can only be imagined by an artist, rendered not through the influence of Impressionist or post-impressionist images of his time but rather in distinct bold strokes using a swirling pattern that was not also previously seen in other paintings.

Source of Information and Inspiration

Information and information about Starry Night abound. As Van Gogh previously did other several starry night renditions, his letters to his friend Emile Bernard, brother Theo, sister Wilhelmina, and Eugene Boch provided insights into his painting.

To Bernard, he wrote, “I am still charmed by the magic of hosts of memories of the past, of a longing for the infinite, of which the sower, the sheaf is the symbols — just as much as before. But when shall I paint my starry sky, that picture which preoccupies me continuously?” (Pomerans, 1996, 492).

By September 9, he wrote to Wilhelmina, “…at present I want to paint a starry sky,” (Pomerans, 1996, 444) and later to Theo, “As for the Starry Sky,” I’d like very much to paint it, and perhaps, one of these nights I shall be in the same plowed field if the sky is sparkling,” (Pomerans, 1996, p 229). It is said that Van Gogh painted the enclosed field beneath his cell while the landscape is straightforward and the Alpilles Mountains exaggerated.

Starry Night is a 2 dimension or flat composition as it is an oil painting on canvas. The strong line is depicted by the cypress tree in a steep pyramidal form at the foreground’s left side. The swirling light trails of the constellation of stars, however, seem to be the focus of lines on Van Gogh’s Starry Night, softening the rather imposing and misplaced pyramid of the cypress. The painting is balanced on one side by the crescent moon’s light spread throughout the landscape, the mountain range’s peaks, against the dark cypress on the foreground.

The use of yellow and blue had been linked to Eugene Delacroix’ Christ on the Lake of Gennesaret which used the “condemned colors” citron yellow and Prussian blue, thus, Van Gogh wrote, “the two colors which are most condemned, and with most reason, citron-yellow and Prussian blue. All the same I think he did superb things with them — the blues and the citron-yellows,” (Pomerans, 1996, 597).

Starry Night is a perfect example of Chiaroscuro, with an exaggerated lighting effect that overwhelms the whole painting. It provided deep texture that is real and deformed, exaggerated, and providing a character and depth that is difficult to place. The lighting and texture of Starry Night are at most mysterious and expressive.

I find Starry Night as an escape of Van Gogh from the harsh reality of his life. At that time, he was confined to a cell, a hospital cell for the mentally deranged. All his life, he had negative family associations except maybe, for Theo who supported him. He had been romantically broken-hearted several times and he has been grieving for a lot of things that include the injustices that surround his favorite subjects: peasants.

It is not so much about perfection, strict following of art forms and rules as well as the close depiction of reality that made Van Gogh’s paintings and the artist immortal. As can be seen on Starry Night, any unlearned viewer may dismiss it as substandard or neophyte work due to the onslaught of “abstract” and “avant-garde” -ism in the arts today. But for historical reasons, Van Gogh represented a true image of an artist who was not after fame and money but pursued the visual arts for the simple joy of sketching, drawing, and painting.

Van Gogh was devoted to showing light in dimmed settings. He viewed life itself as dark and reality as morbid. He abhorred formality and formal learning about art, but he had to suffer going to art schools to improve his craft, as he believed he had to learn a lot of things including anatomy, perspectives, and colors to draw the least.

Van Gogh’s Starry Night is a rendition of a world half-seen and half-imagined that brought him solitude, probably a sense of home away from the harsh reality of daytime and what is seen as reality.

Soth, Laren (1986) “Van Gogh’s Agony.” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 68, No. 2, pp. 301-313.

Hammacher, A.M. Vincent van Gogh: Genius and Disaster, Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, New York, 1985.

Pomerans, Arnold. The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. Penguin Books: London. 1996.

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Vincent van Gogh’s "Starry Night"." March 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/vincent-van-goghs-starry-night/.

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the starry night painting essay

The Starry Night Summary & Analysis by Anne Sexton

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
  • Poetic Devices
  • Vocabulary & References
  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
  • Line-by-Line Explanations

the starry night painting essay

"The Starry Night" is a 1962 ekphrastic poem by Anne Sexton, written in response to Vincent Van Gogh's famous painting of the same name. Gazing into a night sky, the poem's speaker (who might be Van Gogh himself, or another speaker admiring Van Gogh's painting) desperately wants to "die," to dissolve into the starry night for good. This is a poem about both a passionate spiritual response to beauty and a longing for annihilation. At the same time, it reflects the way that art can connect struggling souls across time and space, offering company and consolation.

  • Read the full text of “The Starry Night”

the starry night painting essay

The Full Text of “The Starry Night”

“the starry night” summary, “the starry night” themes.

Theme The Release of Death

The Release of Death

Theme The Power of Art

The Power of Art

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “the starry night”, before line 1.

That does not ... ... to his brother

the starry night painting essay

The town does ... ... with eleven stars.   

Oh starry starry ... ... want to die.

It moves. They ... ... up the stars.   

Lines 11-17

Oh starry starry ... ... no cry.

“The Starry Night” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Line 4: “The night boils with eleven stars.   ”
  • Line 8: “the moon bulges in its orange irons  ”
  • Line 10: “The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.  ”
  • Line 13: “that rushing beast of the night, ”
  • Line 14: “sucked up by that great dragon,”
  • Lines 15-17: “no flag, / no belly, / no cry.”
  • Lines 2-3: “one black-haired tree slips / up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.”
  • Line 9: “to push children, like a god, from its eye.”
  • Line 1: “The town”
  • Line 4: “The town,” “stars”
  • Line 5: “starry starry”
  • Line 10: “stars”
  • Line 11: “starry starry”
  • Lines 5-6: “Oh starry starry night! This is how / I want to die.”
  • Lines 11-12: “Oh starry starry night! This is how    / I want to die:”
  • Lines 2-3: “slips / up”
  • Lines 5-6: “how / I”
  • Lines 8-9: “irons    / to”
  • Lines 11-12: “how    / I”
  • Lines 14-15: “split    / from”
  • Line 1: “exist”
  • Line 2: “slips”
  • Line 3: “sky”
  • Line 4: “silent,” “night”
  • Line 5: “night”
  • Line 6: “I,” “die”
  • Line 7: “alive”
  • Line 8: “irons”
  • Line 9: “like,” “eye”
  • Line 12: “I,” “die”
  • Line 13: “night”
  • Line 14: “sucked up”
  • Line 15: “life”
  • Line 17: “cry”
  • Line 10: “unseen serpent swallows,” “stars”
  • Line 13: “rushing beast”
  • Line 14: “sucked,” “split”
  • Lines 2-4: “one black-haired tree slips / up like a drowned woman into the hot sky. / The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.   ”
  • Lines 8-9: “Even the moon bulges in its orange irons    / to push children, like a god, from its eye.”

“The Starry Night” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • (Location in poem: Line 8: “the moon bulges in its orange irons ”)

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Starry Night”

Rhyme scheme, “the starry night” speaker, “the starry night” setting, literary and historical context of “the starry night”, more “the starry night” resources, external resources.

Van Gogh's Starry Night — Learn more about the famous painting that inspired this poem.

A Short Biography — Learn more about Anne Sexton's life and work at the Poetry Foundation.

An Interview with Sexton — Watch Sexton speak in a 1973 interview.

The Poem Aloud — Listen to Anne Sexton reading this poem aloud.

Sexton's Legacy — Read about some recently rediscovered Sexton poems, and learn more about her influence on the world of poetry.

LitCharts on Other Poems by Anne Sexton

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COMMENTS

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  21. Vincent van Gogh's "The Starry Night" Painting

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  23. Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" Research Paper

    Starry Night is a 2 dimension or flat composition as it is an oil painting on canvas. The strong line is depicted by the cypress tree in a steep pyramidal form at the foreground's left side. The swirling light trails of the constellation of stars, however, seem to be the focus of lines on Van Gogh's Starry Night, softening the rather ...

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    Get LitCharts A +. "The Starry Night" is a 1962 ekphrastic poem by Anne Sexton, written in response to Vincent Van Gogh's famous painting of the same name. Gazing into a night sky, the poem's speaker (who might be Van Gogh himself, or another speaker admiring Van Gogh's painting) desperately wants to "die," to dissolve into the starry night for ...