Starry Night is famous because it was the cumulation of his life’s work. Painted at the climax of his life, it represents the struggle he went through to create this piece of art.
Van Gogh’s style in painting Starry Night
New York: The Museum of Modern Art
While there’s no denying the popularity of Starry Night, it’s also interesting to note that there is very little known about Vincent’s own feelings toward his work. This is mainly due to the fact that he only mentions it in his letters to Theo twice (Letters 595 and 607), and then only in passing. In his correspondence with his brother, Vincent would often discuss specific works in great detail, but not so in the case of Starry Night. Why? It’s difficult to say.
Starry Night was painted while Vincent was in the asylum at Saint-R�my and his behaviour was very erratic at the time, due to the severity of his attacks. Unlike most of Van Gogh’s works, Starry Night was painted from memory and not outdoors as was Vincent’s preference. This may, in part, explain why the emotional impact of the work is so much more powerful than many of Van Gogh’s other works from the same period.
Some people have made stylistic comparisons to Vincent’s other well known and equally turbulent work Wheatfield with Crows. Does the tumultuous style of these works reflect a tortured mind? Or is there something more we can read within the whorls Vincent’s raging night sky? This is what makes Starry Night not only Vincent’s most famous work, but also one of its most frequently interpreted in terms of its meaning and importance.
Some people have speculated about the eleven stars in the painting. While it’s true that Vincent didn’t have the same religious fervour in 1889, when he painted the work, as he did in his earlier years, there is a possibility that the story of Joseph in the Old Testament may have had an influence on the composition of the work.
‘Look, I have had another dream’ he said, ‘I thought I saw the sun, the moon and eleven stars, bowing to me.’
Genesis 37:9
Provenance
| Owner | City | Country | Date acquired | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Theo van Gogh | Paris | France | 1889-91 | |
| Johanna van Gogh-Bonger | Amsterdam | Netherlands | 1891-1905 | |
| Oldenzeel Gallery | Rotterdam | Netherlands | 1905-06 | |
| Miss G.P. van Stolk | Rotterdam | Netherlands | 1906-38 | On loan to Museum Boymans, Rotterdam, until May 1924. |
| Paul Rosenburg Art Gallery | New York | United States | 1938-41 | |
| Museum of Modern Art | New York | United States | 1941 | Acquired through the L.P. Bliss bequest. |
| Year | City | Country | Venue | Exhibition Name | Start Date | End Date | No. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1905 | Amsterdam | Netherlands | Stedelijk Museum | Tentoonstelling Vincent van Gogh | 15 July 1905 | 1 August 1905 | 199 |
| 1906 | Rotterdam | Netherlands | Kunstzalen Oldenzeel | Tentoonstelling Vincent van Gogh | 26 January 1906 | 28 February 1906 | 47 |
| 1927-28 | Rotterdam | Netherlands | Museum Boymans | Kersttentoonstelling in het Museum Boijmans | 23 December 1927 | 16 January 1928 | 33 |
| 1944 | New York (2) | United States | Museum of Modern Art | Art in Progress, Fifteenth Anniversary Exhibition | 29 | ||
| 1948 | Cleveland | United States | Cleveland Museum of Art | Vincent van Gogh | 3 November 1948 | 12 December 1948 | 19 |
| 1949-50 | New York | United States | Metropolitan Museum of Art | Vincent van Gogh Paintings and Drawings. A Special Loan Exhibition | 21 October 1949 | 15 January 1950 | 111A |
| 1950 | Chicago | United States | Art Institute of Chicago | Vincent van Gogh Paintings and Drawings. A Special Loan Exhibition | 1 February 1950 | 16 April 1950 | 111A |
| 1950-51 | Philadelphia | United States | Philadelphia Museum of Art | Masterpieces of Painting, Daimond Jubilee Exhibition | 4 November 1950 | 11 February 1951 | 90 |
| 1952-53 | New York (1) | United States | Museum of Modern Art | Les Fauves | 8 October 1952 | 4 January 1953 | 4 |
| 1954 | Chicago | United States | Art Institute of Chicago | Masterpieces of Religious Art | 15 July 1954 | 31 August 1954 | p 54 |
| 1955 | Paris (2) | France | Mus�e de l’Orangerie | De David � Toulouse-Lautrec, Chefs d’oeuvre des collection am�ricaines | 34 | ||
| 1986-87 | New York | United States | Metropolitan Museum of Art | Van Gogh in Saint-R�my and Auvers | 12 November 1986 | 22 March 1987 | 14 |
| 1990 | Amsterdam | Netherlands | Van Gogh Museum | Vincent van Gogh. Schilderijen | 30 March 1990 | 29 July 1990 | 93 |
| 2000 | Atlanta | United States | High Museum of Art | Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’: Three Masterpieces from The Museum of Modern Art, New York | 2 September 2000 | 5 November 2000 | |
| 2001-02 | Chicago | United States | Art Institute of Chicago | Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South | 22 September 2001 | 13 January 2002 | 116 |
| 2003-04 | Houston | United States | Museum of Fine Arts | The Heroic Century: The Museum of Modern Art’s Masterpieces, 200 Paintings and Sculptures | 21 September 2003 | 4 January 2004 | |
| 2004 | Berlin | Germany | New National Gallery | The Heroic Century: The Museum of Modern Art’s Masterpieces, 200 Paintings and Sculptures | 18 February 2004 | 19 September 2004 | |
| 2008 | New Haven | United States | Yale University Art Gallery | Van Goghs Cypresses and The Starry Night: Visions of Saint-R�my | 15 June 2008 | 7 September 2008 | — |
| 2008-09 | New York | United States | Museum of Modern Art | Van Gogh at the Colours of the Night | 21 September 2008 | 5 January 2009 | 39 |
| 2009 | Amsterdam | Netherlands | Van Gogh Museum | Van Gogh at the Colours of the Night | 13 February 2009 | 7 June 2009 | 53 |
Note: This page is also available in Italian and in Dutch.
Who Painted Starry Night?
This painting was one of many works created by the Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh. During the climax of his life, at a time when he was burdened with mental illness, Van Gogh used to find whatever time he could, when his mind was at peace, to create whatever paintings he could manage.
During one of the brief spells where he was actually able to paint, he created Starry Night, which eventually went on to become one of his masterpieces.
Is there a specific meaning or interpretation behind Starry Night?
Depending on how you look at it, the painting has a number of meanings. At the time it was painted, critics and other artists didn’t it give much thought, since the trend then was photographic reproduction. This wasn’t what Van Gogh did.
But one meaning that Starry Night is supposed to hold was biblical, where the eleven stars were seen as a reference to Joseph. With a possible reference to Genesis 37:9, Van Gogh hoped that he would gain acceptance from his peers as an artist—similar to how Joseph did after a hard life.
Where exactly did Starry Night come from?
To answer this question, it is important to know that during the time Van Gogh was painting it, he faced a lot of psychological problems. A lot of this was due to the fact that he was left alone by his best friend, and he had problems with smoking and drinking in excess.
To counter all of this, he was admitted into a psychiatric asylum at Saint-Remy.
The painting itself was made from his asylum room window, a little before sunrise, with the village idealized to his painting.
Vincent van Gogh Style
The Potato EatersVincent van Gogh
Self-portrait with Straw Hat Vincent van Gogh
The Flowering Orchard Vincent van Gogh
Oleanders Vincent van Gogh
Shoes Vincent van Gogh
Early Years:
Largely self-taught, van Gogh started his career copying prints and reading nineteenth-century drawing manuals and books. His technique grew out of the idea that to be a great painter you had to master drawing first. Van Gogh felt it was necessary to master black and white before working with color, and so he focused on learning the essentials of figure drawing and depicting landscapes in correct perspective.
It was only when he was satisfied with his drawing technique that he began adding in colors and his bold palette became one of the most recognizable features of his later work.
Van Gogh completed over 1,000 drawings in total and regarded drawing as a basic task enabling him to grow artistically and to study form and movement. Drawing was also a means of channeling his depression.
Van Gogh’s drawings are special due to the fact that his depiction of figures, light, and landscape can be admired without the need for color. The artist drew using pencil, black chalk, red chalk, blue chalk, reed pen and charcoal, although he often mixed mediums when drawing. He drew on a variety of paper types and used any material available to him.
Drawing allowed van Gogh to capture light and images more quickly than with painting and it was often the case that he would sketch out his vision for a painting before starting the painting itself.
As well as drawing, van Gogh produced nearly 150 watercolor paintings during his lifetime. Although these did not feature his unique brush stroke textures, the watercolors are undeniably van Gogh because of their bold, vibrant colors. Initially, van Gogh would use watercolors to add shades to his drawings but the more he used them, the more these pieces became works of art in their own right.
In 1882 van Gogh began experimenting with lithography and went on to create a series of ten graphic works: nine lithographs and one etching. The Potato Eaters was intended for the marketplace and he made a lithograph of the piece so that it reached a broader audience and in an attempt to earn some money.
Middle Years:
Many people consider Van Gogh’s letters to be another form of artwork because they include sketches of works that he was focusing on at that time or had just finished. These sketches are proof of van Gogh’s growth and they show the progression of his masterpieces.
In his early career, van Gogh painted with dark and melancholy colors that suited his subjects at the time, namely miners and peasant farm laborers. However, his style changed immensely when he moved to Paris in 1886 and was greatly influenced by the work of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists.
He began using a lighter palette of reds, yellows, oranges, greens, and blues, and experimented with the broken brush strokes of the Impressionists. Van Gogh also attempted the pointillist technique of the Neo-Impressionists whereby contrasting dots of pure color are optically mixed into the resulting color by the viewer. Such experimentation was evident in Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat of 1885.
Van Gogh was also hugely influenced by Japanese prints and he painted dark outlines around objects, filling these in with areas of thick color. His choice of colors varied with his moods and occasionally he deliberately restricted his palette, such as with Sunflowers which is almost entirely composed of yellows.
Advanced Years:
Vincent van Gogh painted over 30 self-portraits between the years 1886 and 1889, reflecting his ongoing pursuit of complementary color contrasts and a bolder composition. His collection of self-portraits places him among the most productive self-portraitists of all time. Van Gogh used portrait painting as a method of introspection, a method to make money and a method of developing his artistic skills.
In 1888 van Gogh moved from Paris to Arles and lived for some time with Gauguin. Gauguin bought a bale of jute and both artists used this for their canvases, causing them to apply paint thickly and to use heavier brush strokes.
Van Gogh started to imitate Gauguin’s technique of painting from memory during this time which resulted in his paintings becoming more attractive and less realistic. Van Gogh’s emerging style saw him emotionally reacting to subjects through his use of color and brush work. He deliberately used colors to capture mood, rather than using colors realistically. No other artist was doing so at this time. Van Gogh said: “Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I see before me, I make more arbitrary use of color to express myself more forcefully.”
Inspired by the light and vibrant colors of the Provençal spring, Van Gogh created 14 paintings of orchards in less than four weeks, painting outdoors and changing his style and technique. The composition of The Flowering Orchard is evidence of the influence of Japanese prints and pieces such as Oleanders and Shoes resonates with the artist’s personal imagery.
