‘The Starry Night” is an oil on Canvas painting by the famous artist ‘Vincent Van Gogh’. He painted it in the year 1889 during his stay in the Asylum. The painting somewhat depicts the view from the east facing window of his asylum room at the Saint Rèmy-de-Provence. It’s a magnificent piece of art. Honestly, the painting’s fame has been extended than that of its creator.

THE ASYLUM

Vincent admitted himself in the asylum  as he had been diagnosed with epileptic fits. His mental condition began to improve but soon it relapsed. He began to suffer hallucination and have the thoughts of suicide as he plunged into depression. Accordingly, there was a tonal shift in his work and eventually he began to incorporate darker colors and The Starry Night is a wonderful example of that shift. During his stay at the asylum, Vincent wrote letters to his brother Theo. The Starry Night was painted in mid-June 1889, the day he wrote a letter to his brother Theo saying that he had a new study about the starry sky.

THE PAINTING

The beauty of The Starry Night is timeless and universal. Vincent painted variations of the same painting of no fewer than twenty-one times. In his letter to his brother Theo, he wrote, “Through the iron barred window, I can see an enclosed square of wheat…above which in the morning, I watch the sun rise in all it’s glory.”                  He depicted this view at different times of the day and under different weather conditions – sunrise, moon-rise, sunshine filled days, overcast,windy days and days filled with rain.

Blue dominates the painting, blending hills into the sky. The little village lays at the base in the painting in browns, greys and blues. Even though each building is clearly outlined in black, the yellow and white color of the moon and the stars stand out in the bright blue sky. Speaking of the sky, Vincent in his letter to Theo wrote about the brightest star in the painting. It says ” This morning, I saw the countryside from my window a long time before Sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big.”     Researchers refer to this morning star as Venus. So, the brightest star in the painting right next to the Cypress tree is actually Venus. Again, every element in the painting has been symbolized in one form or another. This painting is only his imagination. This was not the actual view from his room. Analysts of The Starry Night emphasize on the symbolism of the stylized cypress tree in the foreground, linking it to death and Van Gogh’s eventual suicide.

The contrast in styles plays on the natural versus the unnatural and dreams versus the reality. The brush strokes for the sky swirl around the clouds with each dab of color rolling around the stars and the moon. The hills easily roll down into the village below and on the cypress tree they bend with the curve of the branches. Divide the painting into three parts. The sky is the divine. It is by far the most dreamlike part of the painting, beyond human comprehension and just out of reach. Go down one level to the cypress and the hills and the other trees on the ground, they bend and swirl matching the swirls like that of the sky. The last part is the village. The straight rigid lines divide it from the rest of the painting. However, note the dots of trees rolled through the village, how the spire of the church stretches up to the sky. Van Gogh brings God to the village.

As a man who paints what he sees, this one’s a remarkable break from Vincent Van Gogh’s  normal work.

Thankyou so much for reading 🙂