Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night

Vincent Van Gogh like many post-impressionist artists began moving away from the norm of realism art and branched out to a more abstract style which was present in many of the pieces he created. Van Gogh’s Starry Night highly accredited for it its abstract style and color blend; it became one of the most memorable pieces of art in the Western world. Van Gogh accomplished this through object placement, balance and variation and also the popular craze over post-impressionist style. A closer look at Van Gogh’s painting Starry Night reveals an abstract mountain range of rolling hills contrasted with the highlighted crescent moon followed by stars. A main focal point in this piece would be the rolling wind off-centered to the left in this piece. The placement of the swirl of wind is known as the rule of thirds, which explains the appropriate placement of effect in a piece which allows the viewer to not become too captivated in the center of the work.

At the lower portion of the painting we see the dark blue mountain range which compensates for what would have been the negative space in the upper portion of the painting where the moon is located. The presents of both allows each the moon and mountains to have equal weight in the piece, which is what creates balance. The brush strokes of blue variation which created the swirled wind effect also helps with transition between the top and bottom portions of the piece. Like many artists in this era, Van Gogh also experimented with line and form. This art movement of post-impressionism took places during the 19th century and early 20th century as artists began to counteract the vast majority of realism art that was originally taking place. In Van Gogh’s Starry Night you can see the breaking away of natural line work and unrealistic ideas of what a mountain range would look like in the natural