Heres Where The Work Was Created
We want to conclude this list of facts about Starry Night with a picture of where it all happened. The place that Vincent Van Gogh admitted himself to after 6 months of inner turmoil.
This is the place where he would make history, an old monastery that was turned into an asylum for the insane. Here he watched through the window, saw the fields, and most importantly, saw the stars.
Where Realism Meets Abstraction
To me, this painting marks an interesting area somewhere between realism and complete abstraction. Van Gogh pushed the colors and style in order to depict his unique interpretation of the world, but not so much as to lose all qualities of realism and representation. You know exactly what the subject is, but it is far from what you would see in life.
I enjoy this area in painting as I think it allows for some personal expression, without departing too far from representational art standards.
But of course, this is all just personal commentary which does not really matter. There is no right answer with this kind of stuff. Some admire van Gogh for his unique interpretations, whilst others criticise him for stepping too far away from the boundaries of reality. It is just interesting to ponder over.
Province Of New York And Slavery
In the early 18th century, New York grew in importance as a while as a part of the . It also became a center of , with 42% of households enslaving Africans by 1730, the highest percentage outside , . Most cases were that of , as a New York household then commonly enslaved few or several people. Others were hired out to work at labor. Slavery became integrally tied to New York’s economy through the labor of slaves throughout the port, and the banking and shipping industries trading with the . During construction in in the 1990s, the was discovered the cemetery included 10,000 to 20,000 of graves of colonial-era Africans, some enslaved and some free.
The 1735 trial and acquittal in Manhattan of , who had been accused of after criticizing colonial governor , helped to establish the in North America. In 1754, was founded under charter by as King’s College in Lower Manhattan.
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Reaching For The Stars
Vincent van Gogh created hundreds of paintings and sketches throughout his life as an artist, but he did not achieve wide success like other artists. Only after his death did he become popular, and sometimes his paintings even stole the show, The Starry Night discussed in the article above was one of them. Now considered a masterpiece from the Post-Impressionism art movement, The Starry Night is the star of the show and a 21st-century pop cultural scene easily spotted on memorabilia ranging from mugs to magnets.
Vincent van Gogh did not have an easy life, he experienced considerable mental challenges and struggles that undoubtedly affected the way he made his art, and possibly even enhanced his own personal style. He was a man deeply devoted to depicting beautiful scenes of the natural world in rich textures and colors that not only showed his expressive artistic style, but also his inner world.
This inner world was seemingly just like his use of complementary colors, a mix of inner turmoil, but not without a mix of his sincere appreciation of the beauty of the world he experienced during the day and night. Vincent van Gogh was sadly his own victim, committing suicide in the end and leaving all his artwork to his brother Theo van Gogh, but it was his collection of artworks that continued his legacy and lives on for him.
Take a look at our The Starry Night painting webstory here!
The Stars Might Be References To The Afterlife
At the same time, Van Gogh makes some remarkable mentions of his belief in an afterlife. In a letter he wrote:
It would be so simple and would account so much for the terrible things in life, which now amaze and wound us so, if life had yet another hemisphere, invisible it is true, but where one lands when one dies. Hope is in the stars.
While the cypresses he added to The Starry Night potentially reflect death, they also represent immortality and they appear to be reaching into the sky. This probably helps us to understand his quotes about the stars better as well.
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Swirling Brushwork Used To Create A Sense Of Movement And Turbulence
When I think of The Starry Night, the first thing which comes to mind is the swirling brushwork which creates a sense of movement and turbulence, especially in the sky. In fact, a physicist by the name of Jose Luis Aragon suggested that the swirling brushwork in paintings like The Starry Night have an uncanny resemblance to the mathematical expression of real turbulence shown in natural occurrences like whirlpools and air streams. You can read more on this here.
Van Gogh used a loaded brush to build up a thick, impasto texture which you can see in the close-ups below. This impasto texture is a key feature in many of van Goghs works.
Starry Night Was Painted In An Asylum
Vincent Van Gogh had a troubled life. The events that led up to him cutting off part of his own ear at the end of 1888 made him decide it was enough. So he checked himself into an asylum called Saint-Paul-de-Mausole.
On May 8, 1889. he voluntarily went to admit himself in this nuthouse that was located in an old monastery in the village of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in Southern France.
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Higher Education And Research
More than a million students, the highest number of any city in the United States, are enrolled in New York City’s more than 120 higher education institutions, with more than half a million in the system alone as of 2020, including both degree and professional programs.According to , New York City has, on average, the best higher education institutions of any .
The city also hosts other smaller private colleges and universities, including many religious and special-purpose institutions, such as , , , , – Manhattan, , , , , , , , , , and .
Much of the in the city is done in medicine and the . In 2019, the New York metropolitan area ranked first on the list of cities and metropolitan areas by share of published articles in life sciences. New York City has the most postgraduate life sciences degrees awarded annually in the United States, and in 2012, 43,523 licensed physicians were practicing in New York City. There are 127 with roots in local institutions as of 2004.
Major biomedical research institutions include , Rockefeller University, , , , and , being joined by the / venture on . The graduates of in the Bronx earned the highest average annual salary of any university graduates in the United States, $144,000 as of 2017.
A Rare Night Landscape
The curving, swirling lines of hills, mountains, and sky, the brilliantly contrasting blues and yellows, the large, flame-like cypress trees, and the thickly layered brushstrokes of Vincent van Goghs The Starry Night are ingrained in the minds of many as an expression of the artists turbulent state-of-mind. Van Goghs canvas is indeed an exceptional work of art, not only in terms of its quality but also within the artists oeuvre, since in comparison to favored subjects like irises, sunflowers, or wheat fields, night landscapes are rare. Nevertheless, it is surprising that The Starry Night has become so well known. Van Gogh mentioned it briefly in his letters as a simple study of night or night effect.
Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm
His brother Theo, manager of a Parisian art gallery and a gifted connoisseur of contemporary art, was unimpressed, telling Vincent, I clearly sense what preoccupies you in the new canvases like the village in the moonlight but I feel that the search for style takes away the real sentiment of things . Although Theo van Gogh felt that the painting ultimately pushed style too far at the expense of true emotive substance, the work has become iconic of individualized expression in modern landscape painting.
Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night over the Rhone, 1888, oil on canvas, 72 x 92 cm
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The Colors Of The Night Sky
On the other hand, The Starry Night evidences Van Goghs extended observation of the night sky. After leaving Paris for more rural areas in southern France, Van Gogh was able to spend hours contemplating the stars without interference from gas or electric city street lights, which were increasingly in use by the late nineteenth century. This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big 777, c. 31 May 6 June 1889). As he wrote to his sister Willemien van Gogh from Arles,
It often seems to me that the night is even more richly colored than the day, colored with the most intense violets, blues and greens. If you look carefully, youll see that some stars are lemony, others have a pink, green, forget-me-not blue glow. And without laboring the point, its clear to paint a starry sky its not nearly enough to put white spots on blue-black.
Van Gogh followed his own advice, and his canvas demonstrates the wide variety of colors he perceived on clear nights.
What Is The Message Of Starry Night
Starry night conveys strong feelings of hope through the bright lights of the stars shining down over the dark landscape and night. In 1888, Van Gogh wrote a personal letter which described a great starlit vault of heaven one can only call God.
Is Van Gogh Alive the same as immersive Van Gogh?
Van Gogh Alive: the Experience, which opens in London today, promotes itself as the most visited immersive multi-sensory experience in the world. Close on its heels will be Van Gogh: the Immersive Experience, now scheduled to come to London in July.
How long can you stay at the Van Gogh exhibit?
Once the exhibition is accessed, visitors can stay inside as long as they want. The average visit time is 1 hour.
What is the message of Starry Night?
Where did Vincent van Gogh paint the Starry Night?
Detail of: Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889. Van Goghs rolling night sky full of bright stars is probably one of the worlds most famous artworks. The Starry Nights home is at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But how did it get there?
What to do in the Vincent van Gogh Museum?
Explore Vincent van Goghs famous masterpieces in the museums permanent exhibition. Learn more about Vincent van Goghs life, read his letters, explore his paintings and drawings. Explore the museum from home. Find plenty of inspiration, enjoy art and stories, or get creative.
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Paint A Pic: The Starry Night
| Tickets from £33.00 |
- Activity, Classes and Craft Class
- Tickets from £33.00
Come down and paint your own masterpiece with the guidance of our resident artist. We provide the materials , the subject, music, and the bar to go with it . So, whether alone or with friends ,you can have a great time, and leave with your own piece of art to take home with you!
Key Information
Please check your ticket time carefully
Subject : The Starry Night
No experience necessary – we take you through it step by step
We use high quality materials with everything included in the price
Maximum of 25 people in the class so that you get more time with the artist to perfect your masterpiece
Feel free to stick around for drinks after class!
Any questions please email: info@prime-pass.co.uk
Van Gogh Did Study The Sky Though
A study by Albert Boime has discovered that the sky in the Starry Night painting is a perfect representation of how it actually looked the moment he created the painting.
For this study, they actually recreated the same stretch of the sky at the exact location and the moment Van Gogh wrote to his brother that he had completed the painting at 4 a.m. June 19, 1889.
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Vincent Van Gogh The Starry Night
Zuzanna Staska3 December 2016 min Read
The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh is one of those iconic painting everyone recognizes. But not everyone knows its story! Today we will try to answer all your questions regarding The Starry Night.
This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big, wrote van Gogh to his brother Theo, describing his inspiration for the painting. The window was in the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy, in southern France, where he sought respite from his emotional suffering.
Interesting that van Gogh never considered The Starry Night to be a good painting. He wrote to Theo, All in all the only things I consider a little good in it are the Wheatfield, the Mountain, the Orchard, the Olive trees with the blue hills and the Portrait and the Entrance to the quarry, and the rest says nothing to me.
Van Gogh depicted the view at different times of day and under various weather conditions, including sunrise, moonrise, sunshine-filled days, overcast days, windy days, and one day with rain. The hospital staff did not allow Van Gogh to paint in his bedroom, but he was able to make sketches in ink or charcoal on paper, and eventually he would base newer variations on previous versions. The Starry Night is the only nocturne in the series of views from his bedroom window.
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But Thats Not All Thats Missing
At least, when looking out of his bedroom window. Its been discovered that Van Gogh wouldnt have been able to see the village of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence from his second-floor bedroom window.
This leaves art historians with an important question. Did he use a sketch he created earlier from the actual village of Saint-Rémy or did he improvise and even used elements from villages in his home country of the Netherlands? As of now, the question remains open.
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Invention Remembrance And Observation
Impasto and brush strokes , Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm
Arguably, it is this rich mixture of invention, remembrance, and observation combined with Van Goghs 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. When Starry Night over the Rhône was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, an important and influential venue for vanguard artists in Paris, in 1889, Vincent told Theo he hoped that it might give others the idea of doing night effects better than I do. The Starry Night, his own subsequent night effect, became a foundational image for Expressionism as well as perhaps the most famous painting in Van Goghs oeuvre.
Last Years And Legacy
Although Bliss was weakened by cancer the last months of her life, she participated actively in the formation of the Museum of Modern Art until shortly before her death. For example, March 2, 1931, she visited the exhibition Toulouse-Lautrec/Redon to which she had contributed three works by Odilon Redon and her paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec. On March 12, 1931, Bliss died in New York and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Two months after her death, the Museum of Modern Art presented as its 12th exhibition Works by 24 Artists from the Collection of Lillie P. Bliss, in memory of the Museum co-founder.
In her will, Bliss endowed charities like New York Hospital and the New York Association for Improving the Conditions of the Poor with financial contributions. She bequeathed part of her art collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including works by Arthur B. Davies and Claude Monet‘s painting The Rocky Cliffs at Étretat.
To the surprise of her friends from the Museum of Modern Art, she donated most of her art collection, 150 works of art, to that institution. The museum, at first thought of only for exhibition purposes, was thus given the foundation of a proper permanent collection. The conditions attached to this legacy in the will included a “secure financial basis” to be provided by the museum within three years. Meeting this condition would permanently secure the collection.
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Wealth And Income Disparity
New York City, like other large cities, has a high degree of , as indicated by its of 0.55 as of 2017. In the first quarter of 2014, the average weekly wage in New York County was $2,749, representing the highest total among large counties in the United States. As of 2017, New York City was home to the highest number of of any city in the world at 103, including former . New York also had the highest density of millionaires per capita among major U.S. cities in 2014, at 4.6% of residents. New York City is one of the relatively few American cities levying an on its residents. As of 2018, there were 78,676 in New York City.