Vincent van Gogh: The Starry Night
Vincent van Gogh painted this piece in June of 1889 with oil on canvas (Starry). He painted it outside with gas lamplights (Van Gogh). It is an image of a French city of Arles at night (Van Gogh). It is measured at 73.7 x 92.1cm (Starry). I chose to write my paper on Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night. I have always been drawn to this piece because of its calming affect that it has. I love looking at the cool colors of the city in the far background. The moon looks as if it is so bright that the houses below have the light reflecting on them. If I were to describe this painting to someone that was not able to see it, I would start by telling them that the painting has a small town with a church with a tall
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In talking about the cypress tree in the painting, they are said to be associated with death in the European cultures (Starry). A week after painting The Starry Night, he told his brother that “the cypress trees are always occupying my thoughts” (Starry). Van Gogh thought The Starry Night was a failure because the stars were too big. (Starry).
Van Gogh used to collaborate with fellow painter Paul Gauguin (Van Gogh). But things came to a dramatic end in Arles in 1888 (Van Gogh). Which is also the year he had his mental breakdown where he chopped off his ear (Van Gogh). Van Gogh had to be encouraged to start painting, I assume to keep him busy while he was at the asylum Saint-Paul-de-Mausole (Van Gogh).
I found a website from a person that is an expert on Van Gogh. He writes that Van Gogh had a history of physical and mental problems because he was poor and very malnourished (FAQ). He was addicted to the dangerous narcotic drink absinthe (FAQ). He also had many physical problems like, tinnitus, syphilis, lead poisoning, Meniere’s syndrome and a form of epilepsy
During Vincent Van Gogh’s childhood years, and even before he was born, impressionism was the most common form of art. Impressionism was a very limiting type of art, with certain colors and scenes one must paint with. A few artists had grown tired of impressionism, however, and wanted to create their own genre of art. These artists, including Paul Gaugin, Vincent Van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Paul Cezanne, hoped to better express themselves by painting ...
“This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big,” wrote van Gogh to his brother Theo. This letter was used when he was describing his inspiration for one of his best-known paintings, The Starry Night which was created in 1889. The window that he refers to was in the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy, in southern France, where he tried to relax away from his emotional suffering while he kept making art.
References 2, 7, 8- "Vincent Van Gogh- Portrait of an Artist" Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, pages 7, 85, and 86. Published in 2001.
It is important to keep in mind that Van Gogh was born exactly one year after his brother, also named Vincent, was stillborn (“Vincent Willem”). This odd situation most certainly led to some of Van Gogh’s mishaps later in his life. Also, Van Gogh’s own mother was an artist, yet she never encouraged art in her children, nor did her or her husband support Van Gogh when he decided to study and practice creative thinking (“Vincent Willem”). Van Gogh’s father was a minister, and he and his siblings grew up in a very religious home, which led to some of Van Gogh’s life choices and also to some of his misfortunes along the way (The Van Gogh Gallery).
“The Starry Night” by Anne Sexton describes her experience of visiting Van Gogh’s painting during a gallery showing. Anne Sexton’s Poem “The Starry Night” is written in reference to Vincent Van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night sent to his brother. She writes this poem with a heavy hearted tone, and the understanding of Van Gogh’s work to be a destructive painting, full of darkness and longing for death to come. Sexton views the town at the foot of the hills as decaying and silent as it slowly disappear below the starry night. More importantly Sexton sees the tree that looks like the hair of dead woman drifting in the blue sky which is like a serpent that is sly and deceitful. Like the understanding of the evil of the sea in the times of the ancient near east, she saw the swirling sky similarly. Through this she then sees the night like a beast that brings chaos and destruct, removing all that is beautiful. For she says the even the eleven starts, so beautiful with the moon will be swallowing up by the beast of the night. She writes as if all of this was once beautiful and a source of life to this earth, however is now destroyed, and source of longing for the destruction of life.
Vincent, Van Gogh. Van Gogh Museum, "To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 21 September 1888.." Accessed April 3, 2014. http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let685/letter.html.
he artwork I chose to analyze is The Starry Night (June 1889) by Vincent Van Gogh.I
31-40), there is a vast difference between his piece and Georges Seurat’s. Instead of using dots to create the effect for his piece, Van Gogh primarily uses small lined brush strokes heavy with paint giving a palpable appearance. Most visible is the predominant use of the color blue, ranging in different levels of intensity from a color so deep it appears to almost be black to the palest of blues, bordering on being white. Among these many shades of blues, yellow, white, black and a reddish brown are also visible. To balance the extravagant whirling skyscape located above the small village, Van Gogh includes in the foreground a large, gnarled looking tree, opposite side of the canvas to the imposing, glowing moon. Motion is noticeable within the sky, wherein the clouds and stars carry similar appearance to large waves. As though mimicking the movement from above, the mountains below follow along similar curvature as the clouds and stars, making it challenging for the viewer to determine where precisely the sky starts and the earth
Vincent Van Gogh never gave up his style and insight in his early work compared to his later work. I will discuss the comparison of the Potato Eaters and Starry Night and even though there are obvious differences, the core of his passion and eccentricities can be seen.
The image is set inside ‘bedroom in Arles’ the room’s walls are stamped in bloody handprints. The centre of attention is a decapitated aboriginal man, with blood shooting from his body merging into Van Gogh’s appropriated painting ‘Starry Night’. The man appears to be posing in a very exhausted way. In front of this aboriginal man are two be-headed heads, these heads seem to resemble a European marble-like statues. The bedroom is an unfinished room layering nicely over Vincent’s ‘Starry Night’.
In conclusion, Van Gogh used the elements above to create a man by himself in a field. He used color to represent feeling rather than represent realism of an event. The cool colors represent the field and happiness in his work. The warm colors represent the harshness of the day and could be a metaphor for life. He used scale and proportion to emphasis the overbearing sun. He also used proportion and scale to represent literally and figuratively how far away home was. The linear perspective was only evident to me after I really studied the used of lines. I followed the lines to the horizon and left side of the painting.
The piece I have chosen to discuss is Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, beginning with the discussion of line. A prominent line featured in the design is that which that defines the rolling hills in the background. It is important to note that this line is of a more substantial weight than many of the others in this piece, which works to distinguish it and define the layout of the scene. In the same vein, the most prominent shapes would be the organic shape on the left and the more geometric shapes near the middle. The contrast between these shapes may represent a corresponding contrast between two different ideals.
Vincent Van Gogh’s piece titled Starry Night, represents the artist’s insanity and isolation from the outside world. Van Gogh painted the view that was seen from the room, mixed with the emotions he felt inside. Starry Night is an oil painting on canvas and is two dimensional. The painting is found in the Museum of Modern Art located in New York. The variety of elements and principles of art, help to bring the painting to life, and help viewers understand what the art could represent.
Starry Night and View of Toledo are both landscapes featuring a town, a church, and a beautiful night sky. Both artists used the contrast of light and dark to detail their paintings. They both also took liberties in arranging the cities the way they saw fit.
In this essay will be talking about and comparing between the traditional painting Starry night by Vincent Van Gogh and the digital movie poster for Midnight in Paris designed by the company Cardinal Communications USA. Starry Night is an artwork that was painted in 1889 in an asylum at Saint-Remy-de-Provience, France while the Midnight in Paris poster is digitally made somewhere in the USA by someone in that company sometime in 2010. While both these artworks are very different, they have some similarities.