Celestial Inspirations: The Artistic Journey of Van Gogh's Starry Night

Vincent van Gogh is widely regarded today as one of the most iconic painters. His artwork is celebrated for its incredible vitality, showcasing a passionate and emotional use of colour. Van Gogh's distinctive style, characterized by thick applications of paint known as impasto, gives his pieces a dynamic texture that draws viewers in. This energetic technique conveys a deep sense of his feelings and perceptions about the world, whether he's depicting tranquil landscapes or intense self-portraits.

While his paintings are admired for their beauty, they also glimpse his tumultuous life and emotional struggles. Van Gogh's innovative use of colour and texture played a significant role in paving the way for later movements like Expressionism, particularly the Fauves. One hundred thirty-five years after its creation, Starry Night is one of the most famous and analyzed paintings ever created. It continues to capture viewers' hearts.

Vincent van Gogh created the Starry Night in June 1889. It captures the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just as dawn broke. The painting features an imaginative little village beneath a swirling sky. Since 1941, it has found a home at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, thanks to the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest. Many consider The Starry Night to be Van Gogh's masterpiece, and it stands as one of the most recognizable works in Western art history.

The Asylum

After experiencing a breakdown in December 1888, which resulted in him mutilating his left ear, Van Gogh chose to enter the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum on May 8, 1889. The asylum, housed in a former monastery, accommodated its wealthier patients and had plenty of space available when Van Gogh arrived. This allowed him to use a second-floor bedroom and a ground-floor room as his studio. During his stay, which lasted about a year, he produced many paintings, including the Irises in May 1889 and a blue self-portrait in September of that year. The Starry Night was painted around June 18, and in a letter to his brother Theo, he mentioned working on a new study of the starry sky.

The Painting

Interestingly, while Van Gogh created The Starry Night during the day in his studio, he didn’t just rely on memory. The scene is the view from his bedroom window, a perspective he explored at least twenty-one times in various ways. In a letter dated May 23, 1889, he described how he saw a square of wheat from his window and observed the sunrise in its full beauty.

He painted this landscape under different conditions, capturing everything from sunrises to stormy days. Though he wasn’t allowed to paint in his bedroom, he sketched with ink and charcoal, using those sketches later as references for his paintings. A notable element across these works is the diagonal line of the low hills of the Alpilles mountains. Cypress trees appear in fifteen of the twenty-one versions. Van Gogh sometimes exaggerates their size, particularly in pieces like Wheat Field with Cypresses and The Starry Night, pulling them into the foreground.

One of the first versions of this view can be found in Mountainous Landscape Behind Saint-Rémy, now in Copenhagen. Van Gogh created additional sketches, including The Enclosed Wheatfield After a Storm. Interestingly, he mentioned in a letter dated June 9 that he had been working outside for a few days. He also referred to a painting he completed on June 16 in a letter to his sister Wil, titled Green Wheat Field with Cypress, marking his first outdoor painting at the asylum.

The Starry Night is unique among his window views because it depicts a nighttime scene. In early June, he told Theo about the countryside he could see from his window before dawn, highlighting a vast morning star. Research shows that Venus, which is often called the "morning star," would indeed have been visible at dawn in Provence that spring, making it the brightest "star" in the painting, positioned just to the right of the cypress tree.

As for the moon in the painting, it’s stylized; astronomical records indicate it was in a waning gibbous phase at the time he painted it. So, even if it looks like a waning crescent, it wouldn’t quite align with what the sky looked like. The village portrayed in the artwork wasn’t visible from his cell; instead, it’s based on a sketch he made from a hillside overlooking Saint-Rémy. Some critics even argue that aspects of this sketch reflect more Dutch influences than Provençal ones, showing how Van Gogh blended various inspirations into his work.

The Starry Night is a testament to Vincent van Gogh's extraordinary talent and ability to convey deep emotions through his art. Created during a tumultuous time in his life, the painting reflects the beauty and turbulence of his inner world. Its vivid colours, swirling skies, and dreamlike quality invite viewers to explore not only the landscape before them but also the complexities of Van Gogh's mind. Today, it remains an enduring symbol of artistic genius, captivating audiences around the globe and inspiring countless interpretations and discussions. The Starry Night is more than just a painting; it is a profound expression of human experience that continues to resonate across generations.