Art Article 2
Starry Night is a painting by the Dutch
post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh, and is one of his most well-known
works. Painted in June 1889, Starry Night was inspired by the view outside of
his sanitarium room window at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (located in southern
France). Unlike van Gogh’s earlier painting Starry Night Over the Rhone,
which holds many similarities to Starry Night, the new night scene was painted
in daylight, all from memory. The center part of the painting shows a quiet
village by the mountains under a swirling star-filled sky. The village was
partially invented and the church spire has been said to be a tribute to his
home country, the Netherlands. The
cypress tree to the left was later added into the composition. Art historian
Joachim Pissarro cites Starry Night
as an example of van Gogh's fascination with the night. This painting has been
in the permanent collection of the Manhattan Museum of Modern Art in New York
City since 1941. Starry Night has
been the subject of poetry, fiction, and the well known song "Starry,
Starry Night" by Don McLean. Some people have speculated about the eleven
stars in the painting and its possible connection to the story of Joseph in the
Old Testament (Genesis 37:9). One of van Gogh’s other paintings, Sunset at
Montmajour, has just recently been discovered after sitting in a Norwegian
attic since the early 1900s; it is the first full-size work by van Gogh to be
discovered since 1928.
