120. The Starry Night

 

The Starry Night  Vincent van Gogh. 1889. St. Remy, France. Oil on canvas It is this rich mixture of invention, remembrance, and observation combined with Van Gogh's use of simplified forms, thick impasto, and boldly contrasting colors that has made the work so compelling to subsequent generations of viewers as well as to other artists. Inspiring and encouraging others is precisely what Van Gogh sought to achieve with his night scenes. The painting became a foundational image for Expressionism as well as perhaps the most famous painting in Van Gogh's oeuvre. Artist: Vincent Van Gogh Date: 1889 Medium: Oil on Canvas Movement: Post-Impressionism Content: Landscape view from artist's hospital room in St.-Rémy Mountains in the distance actual steepness exaggerated in painting Composite landscape: Dutch church, crescent moon, Mediterranean cypress tree Wave-like movement flows left to right broken only by verticality of cypress and church steeple Cypress tree a traditional symbol of death and eternal life reaches up to the sky, dominating foreground closest to artist symbolism! Form: Oil on canvas Composite landscape short, thick brushstrokes parts of canvas can be seen through the brushwork did not need to fill in every bit of the composition Function: A landscape study, or a study of the nighttime expression of the artist's internal turmoil (suffered from mental illness) Desire to experiment with stylized techniques Context: Struggle with mental illness painted during his convalescence at mental hospital near St.-Rémy following breakdown in which he mutilated his own ear Post-Impressionist Characteristics: dynamic brushstrokes non-naturalistic vibrant color that exaggerates and accentuates, rather than representing reality painterly in quality inspired Fauvism (later movement)