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The Starry Night

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Painting Analysis

As soon as Vincent Van Gogh arrived in Arles for a period of recuperation after the effects of Paris and his fraught personal life took their toll, the artist was captivated by the night sky of the Southern French region.This period of experimentation with the nature of night and the representation of its dark canopy led to the creation of some of his most recognizable pieces.

The starry night sky was both a motor for his increased artistic output and a method of self-treatment, notably during his time in a sanatorium after a massive breakdown. Starry Night Over the Rhone, painted a year before Starry Night, is a huge accomplishment, and an experiential reproduction of a nighttime so paradoxically full of light. Following Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum in the artist's chronology, the night depicted in Starry Night Over the Rhone translates the seemingly unavoidable black hues for royal blues, Prussian blues, and ultramarine. Many see violence and anguish expressed in the tumultuous brushstrokes, while others detect serenity in the cosmic vortex of the sky.

Van Gogh painted two other versions of the starry night, one currently housed at the New York MoMA and the other housed in the Musee d'Orsay. Although the artist only sold one painting during his short and troubled life, the influence of his night visions is immense. Starry Night Over the Rhone is remarkable in its depiction of the tiny figures of a couple walking along the river, facing the viewer as if in a pose. The crisscross brush strokes give a still effect to the blue sky. The yellow light coming from the stars is slightly greener than the lights coming from the city - which reflect on the water. Van Gogh is able to represent the fluidity of the water with his beautiful color pallet and wavy brush strokes.

Both anchoring and off-setting the dream- like qualities of the piece, this reproduction of a seemingly gentle scene takes on chameleonic qualities - molding and flattening itself to the psychological state of the viewer. More than anything else, Starry Night Over the Rhone is a work that demands experiencing, and re-experiencing, securing its place as one of the world's great cultural treasures.