THE STARRY NIGHT

Main articles: Vincent van Gogh

'''The Starry Night''' is a painting by Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. Since 1941 it has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Widely hailed as his magnum opus, the painting has been reproduced many times and is one of his most renowned paintings.

Contents

Genesis

Subject matter

Recent commentaries

Aims and ends

Legacy

Resources

Notes

References

External links

Genesis

In autumn 1888, while van Gogh was staying in Arles, he executed a painting commonly known as ''Starry Night Over the Rhone''.^[1] Almost a year later, mid-June 1889, he announced "a new study of a starry sky,"^[2] and later he incorporated a pen drawing in a set of a dozen based on recent paintings. In mid-September 1889, following a heavy crisis which lasted from mid-July to the last days of August, he thought to include this ''"Study of the Night"''Letter 607 in the next batch of works to be sent to his brother Theo in Paris. In order to reduce the shipping costs, he withheld three of the studies ("above-mentioned – Poppies – Night Effect – Moonrise"). These three went to Paris with the shipment to follow.^[3] As Theo did not immediately report its arrival, Vincent inquired again,^[4] and finally received Theo's commentary on his recent work.^[5]

Subject matter

This is no photography of an actual site, but a ''free'' compilation of local topics to be seen in the neighbourhood of the asylum in Saint-Rémy and compiled by an artist who had studied the various elements of his composition in detail. The center part shows the village of Saint-Rémy, in a view from the asylum towards north. The Alpilles far to the right fit to this view, but there is little rapport of the actual scene with the intermediary hills which seem to be derived from a different part of the surroundings, south of the asylum. A tree — the top of a cypress, on the left — was added into the composition. Of note, is the fact van Gogh had already, during his time in Arles, repositioned Ursa Major from the north to the south in his painting ''Starry Night Over the Rhone''.

Recent commentaries

★ As pointed out by Simon Singh in his book ''Big Bang'', ''The Starry Night'' has striking similarities to ''Whirlpool Galaxy'', a sketch made 44 years before van Gogh's work.

★ The painting has been compared to an astronomical photograph of a star named V838 Monocerotis, taken by the Hubble in 2004. The clouds of gas surrounding the star resemble the swirling patterns van Gogh used in this painting. The image is rated number one on space.com's collection of astronomical images.^[6]

Aims and ends

Van Gogh was perhaps not so happy with this painting. In a letter to Theo from Saint-Rémy he wrote:
Later in this letter, Vincent referred once more to the painting:

Legacy

The painting was the inspiration for French composer Henri Dutilleux's orchestral work ''Timbres, Espace, Mouvement'' and for Don McLean's song "Vincent", which is also known by its opening words, "Starry, Starry Night."

Resources

Notes

1. Vincent van Gogh - Biography, Quotes & Paintings, retrieved June 14th 2007.
2. Letter 595
3. Letter 608
4. Letter 609
5. Letter T19
6. V838 Monocerotis Space.com's Most Amazing Galactic Images Ever

References

Boime, Albert: ''Vincent van Gogh: Starry Night. A history of matter, a matter of history'' (also available on CD-ROM: ISBN 3-634-23015-0 (German version))

External links

★ Starry Night'' in the MoMA Online Collection

★ smARThistory: van Gogh's ''Starry Night''

★ Lyrics to Don McLean's "Vincent" aka "Starry, Starry Night".

★ Multimedia study of van Gogh, McLean and Sexton