Description of the painting by Van Gogh “Starry Night”

Assigned to Paris in 1875 as an art gallery dealer, Vincent van Gogh had no idea that the city would change his life. The young man was attracted by the exhibitions of the Louvre and the Luxembourg Museum, he began to study painting himself. True, a little carried away by religion, which became an outlet after an unhappy London love.

A few years later he finds himself in a Belgian village, but not as a dealer, but as a preacher. He sees that religion is not interested in alleviating human suffering and the decisive choice in his life is art.

It is worth noting that it is quite difficult to understand the motives and worldview of Van Gogh, despite the simplicity of his paintings. Biographers constantly emphasize his Dutch origin, the same as that of Rembrandt, forgetting that mental illness occurred in the artist's family. He cut his ears and drank absinthe, trying to find a connection between man and the outside world, he painted sunflowers, self-portraits and Starry Night.

Interestingly, the famous painting now in New York's Museum of Modern Art is not Van Gogh's first attempt at painting the sky at night. While in Arles, he created "Starry Night over the Rhone", but it was not at all what the author wanted. And the artist wished for fabulousness, unreality and an amazing world. In letters to his brother, he calls the desire to paint the stars and the night sky a lack of religion, says that the idea for the canvas was born to him a long time ago: cypresses, stars in the sky and, perhaps, a field of ripe wheat.

So, the picture, which is the fruit of the artist's imagination, was painted in Saint-Remy. “Starry Night” is still considered the most phantasmagoric and mysterious canvas by the artist today - the realness of the plot and its extraterrestrial character are so felt. Such drawings are usually made by children, depicting a spaceship or a rocket, and here - an artist who is so important to the essence of the world around him.

The fact that the picture was painted in a psychiatric hospital is no secret to anyone. Van Gogh at that time was tormented by bouts of insanity that were unpredictable and spontaneous. So "Starry Night" became for him a kind of therapy that helps to cope with the disease. Hence its emotionality, coloring and uniqueness - in hospital confinement there is always a lack of bright colors, sensations and experiences. Maybe that's why "Starry Night" has become one of the must-haves in the art world - critics of more than one generation discuss it, it attracts museum visitors, it is duplicated, embroidered on pillows ...

There are countless interpretations of the picture, starting with the number of stars depicted. There are eleven of them, in brightness and saturation they resemble the Star of Bethlehem. But here's the bad luck: in 1889, Van Gogh was no longer fond of theology and did not feel the need for religion, but the legend of the birth of Jesus greatly influenced his worldview. It was such a night, and such a mysterious radiance of the stars, that marked Christmas. Another moment of the biblical interpretation of the picture is associated with the Book of Genesis, namely with a quote from it: "... I had a dream again ... It had the sun and moon, and eleven stars, and everyone bowed to me."

In addition to the opinions of researchers about the influence of religion on Van Gogh's work, there are meticulous geographers who still have not figured out what kind of settlement the artist wrote. Luck does not smile at astronomers either: they cannot understand which constellations are depicted on the canvas. And weather forecasters are also at a loss: how can the sky be swirling with whirlwinds if at night it is shrouded in serenity and cold indifference.

And only the only hint of a clue was given by the artist himself, writing in 1888: “Looking at the stars, I always start to dream. I ask myself: why should the bright dots in the sky be less accessible to us than the black dots on the map of France? So researchers are still deciding which part of the country of high fashion portrayed by Van Gogh.

What is so depicted in this picture, since it torments millions, forcing them to look for a clue? The village against the backdrop of the starry sky, and that's it. Is that all? The entire space is occupied by a blue spiral sky, the village is just a backdrop for the sky. The grandeur of the sky is somewhat softened by incredibly bright yellow stars, and the mystery of the "Starry Night" is given by cypresses, which are claimed by both heaven and earth.

Interestingly, the panorama of the village has features that are characteristic of both northern and southern French regions. It is called a generalized image of human settlements. And while he sleeps, a mystery takes place in the sky: the luminaries move, creating new worlds in the formidable and so attractive sky.

The moon and the stars are simply amazing, they are remembered for a long time: surrounded by huge halos in the form of spheres of various shades - gold, blue and mysterious white. Celestial bodies seem to radiate cosmic light, illuminating the blue-blue spiral sky. Interestingly, the undulating rhythm of the sky captures both the crescent of the moon and the brightest stars - everything is just like in the soul of Van Gogh himself. The spontaneity of Starry Night is actually ostentatious. The picture is thought out and composed very carefully: it seems balanced thanks to the cypresses and the harmonious selection of the palette.

Its color scheme cannot but surprise with a unique combination of rich dark blue (even the shade of the Moroccan night), rich and sky blue, to black green, chocolate brown and aquamarine. There are several shades of yellow, which the artist plays with as best he can, depicting traces of stars. It has the color of sunflowers, butter, egg yolk, pale yellow…. And the very composition of the picture: trees, crescent moon, stars and a town in the mountains is filled with truly cosmic energy...

The stars seem truly bottomless, the crescent gives the impression of the sun, the cypresses look more like flames, and the spiral swirls seem to hint at the Fibonacci sequence. Whatever the state of mind of Van Gogh at that time, "Starry Night" does not leave indifferent any person who has seen at least its reproduction.

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Vincent Van Gogh. Starlight Night. 1889 Museum of Modern Art, New York

Starlight Night. This is not just one of Van Gogh's most famous paintings. It is one of the most notable paintings in all of Western painting. What is so unusual about her?

Why, once you see it, you won't forget it? What kind of air vortices are depicted in the sky? Why are stars so big? And how did a painting that Van Gogh considered a failure become an “icon” for all expressionists?

I have collected the most interesting facts and mysteries of this picture. Which reveal the secret of her incredible attractiveness.

1 Starry Night Written In A Hospital For The Insane

The painting was painted during a difficult period in Van Gogh's life. Six months before that, cohabitation with Paul Gauguin ended badly. Van Gogh's dream of creating a southern workshop, a union of like-minded artists, did not come true.

Paul Gauguin has left. He could no longer stay close to the unbalanced friend. Quarrels every day. And once Van Gogh cut off his earlobe. And handed it to a prostitute who preferred Gauguin.

Exactly the same as they did with a downed bull in a bullfight. The severed ear of the animal was given to the victorious Matador.

Vincent Van Gogh. Self-portrait with cut off ear and pipe. January 1889 Zurich Kunsthaus Museum, Private collection of Niarchos. wikipedia.org

Van Gogh could not stand the loneliness and the collapse of his hopes for the workshop. His brother placed him in an asylum for the mentally ill in Saint-Remy. This is where Starry Night was written.

All his mental strength was strained to the limit. That's why the picture turned out so expressive. Bewitching. Like a bunch of bright energy.

2. “Starry night” is an imaginary, not a real landscape

This fact is very important. Because Van Gogh almost always worked from nature. This was the question over which they most often argued with Gauguin. He believed that you need to use the imagination. Van Gogh was of a different opinion.

But in Saint-Remy he had no choice. Patients were not allowed to go outside. Even work in his ward was forbidden. Brother Theo agreed with the authorities of the hospital that the artist was allocated a separate room for his workshop.

So in vain, researchers are trying to find out the constellation or determine the name of the town. Van Gogh took all this from his imagination.

3. Van Gogh depicted turbulence and the planet Venus

The most mysterious element of the picture. In a cloudless sky, we see eddy currents.

Researchers are sure that Van Gogh depicted such a phenomenon as turbulence. Which can hardly be seen with the naked eye.

Consciousness aggravated by mental illness was like a bare wire. To such an extent that Van Gogh saw what an ordinary mortal could not do.

Vincent Van Gogh. Starlight Night. Fragment. 1889 Museum of Modern Art, New York

400 years before that, another person realized this phenomenon. A person with a very subtle perception of the world around him. . He created a series of drawings with eddy currents of water and air.

Leonardo da Vinci. Flood. 1517-1518 Royal Art Collection, London. studiointernational.com

Another interesting element of the picture is the incredibly large stars. In May 1889, Venus could be observed in the south of France. She inspired the artist to depict bright stars.

You can easily guess which of Van Gogh's stars is Venus.

4. Van Gogh thought Starry Night was a bad painting.

The picture is written in a manner characteristic of Van Gogh. Thick long strokes. Which are neatly stacked next to each other. Juicy blue and yellow colors make it very pleasing to the eye.

However, Van Gogh himself considered his work a failure. When the picture got to the exhibition, he casually commented about it: "Maybe she will show others how to depict night effects better than I did."

Such an attitude to the picture is not surprising. After all, it was not written from nature. As we already know, Van Gogh was ready to argue with others until he was blue in the face. Proving how important it is to see what you write.

Here is such a paradox. His “unsuccessful” painting became an “icon” for the expressionists. For whom the imagination was much more important than the outside world.

5. Van Gogh created another painting with a starry night sky

This is not the only Van Gogh painting with night effects. The year before, he had written Starry Night over the Rhone.

Vincent Van Gogh. Starry night over the Rhone. 1888 Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The Starry Night, which is kept in New York, is fantastic. The cosmic landscape overshadows the earth. We do not immediately even see the town at the bottom of the picture.

Artists around the world are constantly copying Van Gogh's Starry Night, Saint-Remy. This is one of the most recognizable paintings in the world of fine arts, and various reproductions of this canvas adorn the interiors of many houses. The circumstances of the creation of "Starry Night", where and how it was painted, as well as the artist's former unfulfilled dreams, make this work especially significant for Van Gogh's work.

Vincent van Gogh "Starry Night, Saint Remy" 1889

When Van Gogh was a little younger, he was going to become a pastor and missionary, he wanted to help poor people with the word of God. Religious education in some way helped him create "Starry Night". In 1889, when the night sky was painted with stars sparkling in the moonlight, the artist wasin the French hospital of Saint-Remy.

Count the stars - there are eleven of them.We can say that the creation of the picture was influenced by the ancient legend of Joseph from the Old Testament. “Behold, I had another dream: behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars worship me,” we read in the Book of Genesis.

Van Gogh wrote: “I still crave religion. That is why I went out at night from the house and began to draw the night sky with stars.
This well-known picture of the master demonstrates to the viewer the great power of the artist, as well as his individual and unique style of painting and his special vision of the whole world around him.The painting "Starry Night" is the most outstanding work of art of the mid-19th century.

There are many reasons why Starry Night is so appealing to people, and it's not just the saturation of the blues and yellows. Many details in the picture and, first of all, the stars are deliberately enlarged. It's like an embodied vision of the artist: he surrounds each of the stars with a ball, and we observe their rotational movement.
Just as the stars bend on their way down to the hilly horizon, so Van Gogh will be inclined to leave the familiar world by stepping over the threshold of the hospital. The windows of the buildings are reminiscent of the houses where he lived as a child, and the spire of the church depicted by Van Gogh in The Starry Night recalls that he once wanted to devote his life to religious activities.

The main "pillars" of the composition are the seemingly huge cypress trees on the hill (foreground), the pulsating crescent and stars of a "radiant", bright yellow color. A city lying in a valley may even go unnoticed at first, because the main emphasis is on the greatness of the universe.

The crescent of the moon, the stars move in a single undulating rhythm. The trees depicted in this picture greatly balance the overall composition.

The whirlwind in the sky reminds of the Milky Way, of galaxies, of cosmic harmony, expressed in both ecstatic and blissfully calm movement of all bodies in dark blue space. In the picture, these are eleven incredibly huge stars and a large, but waning month, reminiscent of the biblical story about Christ and the 12 apostles.

Geographers are trying in vain to determine what kind of settlement is depicted at the bottom of the canvas, and astronomers are trying to find the constellations in the picture. The image of the night sky is written off from my own consciousness. If usually the night sky is serene and cold-indifferent, then in Van Gogh it is swirling with whirlwinds, full of secret life.

Thus, the artist hints that the imagination is omnipotent to create a more amazing nature than the one we see in the real world.

"Starlight Night"

When the darkness of the Night falls on the Earth -
Love lights up the stars in the sky...

Perhaps someone does not notice them,
And, someone observes them through a telescope -

There he is looking for life, studying science ...
And someone just looks - and dreams!

Sometimes, a fabulous Dream happens,
But still, he continues to believe ...

His star is alive, it shines,
He answers all his questions...

There, among thousands of stars - Vincent has a Star!
She never fades away!

She burns all over the universe -
She sets the planet on fire!

So that, in the midst of the dark Night, it suddenly becomes brighter -
So that the light of the Star shines like the Sun in the Soul of people!

Vincent's sister

Plot

Night enveloped the imaginary city. In the foreground are cypresses. These trees, with their gloomy dark green foliage, in ancient tradition symbolized sadness, death. (It is no coincidence that cypress trees are often planted in cemeteries.) In the Christian tradition, cypress is a symbol of eternal life. (This tree grew in the Garden of Eden and, presumably, Noah's Ark was built from it.) In Van Gogh, the cypress plays both roles: it is the sadness of the artist, who will soon commit suicide, and the eternity of the run of the universe.

Self-portrait. Saint-Remy, September 1889

To show movement, to give dynamics to the frozen night, Van Gogh came up with a special technique - drawing the moon, stars, sky, he put strokes in a circle. This, combined with color transitions, gives the impression that the light is spilling.

Context

Vincent painted the picture in 1889 in the Saint-Paul hospital for the mentally ill in Saint-Remy-de-Provence. It was a period of remission, so Van Gogh asked to go to his studio in Arles. But the residents of the city signed a petition demanding that the artist be expelled from the city. “Dear Mayor,” the document says, “we the undersigned would like to draw your attention to the fact that this Dutch artist (Vincent van Gogh) has lost his mind and drinks too much. And when he gets drunk, he sticks to women and children. Van Gogh will never return to Arles.

Drawing en plein air at night fascinated the artist. The depiction of color was of paramount importance to Vincent: even in letters to his brother Theo, he often describes objects using different colors. Less than a year before The Starry Night, he wrote The Starry Night Over the Rhone, where he experimented with rendering the shades of the night sky and artificial lighting, which was new at the time.

"Starry night over the Rhone", 1888

The fate of the artist

Van Gogh lived 37 troubled and tragic years. Growing up as an unloved child, who was perceived as a son who was born instead of an older brother who died a year before the birth of a boy, the severity of his father-pastor, poverty - all this affected Van Gogh's psyche.

Not knowing what to devote himself to, Vincent could not finish his studies anywhere: either he quit, or he was expelled for violent antics and a sloppy look. Painting was an escape from the depression Van Gogh faced after failing with women and failing to build a career as a dealer and missionary.

Van Gogh also refused to study as an artist, believing that he could master everything on his own. However, it was not so easy - Vincent never learned to draw a person. His paintings attracted attention, but were not in demand. Disappointed and saddened, Vincent left for Arles with the intention of creating the "Workshop of the South" - a kind of brotherhood of like-minded artists working for future generations. It was then that Van Gogh's style took shape, which is known today and the artist himself described as follows: "Instead of trying to accurately depict what is before my eyes, I use color more arbitrarily, so as to express myself most fully."

, 1890

In Arles, the artist lived a binge in every sense. He wrote a lot and drank a lot. Drunken fights frightened the locals, who eventually even asked to expel the artist from the city. In Arles, the famous incident with Gauguin also occurred, when, after another quarrel, Van Gogh attacked a friend with a razor in his hands, and then, either as a sign of repentance, or in another attack, he cut off his earlobe. All circumstances are still unknown. However, the day after this incident, Vincent was taken to a hospital, and Gauguin left. They didn't meet again.

The last 2.5 months of his torn life, Van Gogh painted 80 paintings. And the doctor did think that Vincent was all right. But one evening he closed himself and did not go out for a long time. The neighbors, who suspected something was wrong, opened the door and found Van Gogh shot through the chest. He failed to help - the 37-year-old artist died.

Vincent van Gogh is a Dutch post-impressionist painter who had a tremendous impact on art. His works are worth tens of millions of dollars, and there are admirers of the painter's work all over the world. But all this happened after the death of the artist. Van Gogh lived a difficult and short life, only 37 years old. He was in constant search of himself as an artist, struggled with a serious illness, often he did not have enough money for food, and spent all his money on paints, brushes and canvases. Nevertheless, Vincent, and he was intensively engaged in creative work for the last seven years of his life, left a huge legacy - more than two thousand paintings and graphic works. One of Van Gogh's most famous paintings is Starry Night. This masterpiece was very significant for the artist himself.

Background. Quarrel with Gauguin. The painting was preceded by important events in Van Gogh's life. Everyone knows the story of the cut off ear after a quarrel with the artist Paul Gauguin. Vincent lived in Arles in 1888, where he dreamed of creating an artists' residence in the yellow house he had rented. He invited Gauguin, and the artist agreed to come. Van Gogh rejoiced like a child, he admired the talent of Paul Gauguin, painted pictures with sunflowers especially for his arrival (he wanted to decorate his friend's room with them).

During his visit to Arles, Paul Gauguin painted a portrait of Van Gogh at work.

For some time, Gauguin and Van Gogh worked fruitfully together, but more and more often creative differences arose between them. Paul Gauguin believed that the artist should fantasize more in creating his works, while Vincent was an adherent of working with nature. Gauguin wrote: “I feel like a complete stranger in Arles. Vincent and I rarely agree, especially when it comes to painting. He hates Ingres, Raphael and Degas, whom I admire. To put an end to the arguments, I tell him, "You're right, General." He really likes my paintings, but when I work on them, he constantly points me to one or the other shortcoming. He is a romantic, but I like primitives.

"Self-portrait with cut off ear and pipe" Van Gogh wrote after a quarrel with Gauguin

In total, Gauguin spent two months in Arles. During quarrels, he often threatened Van Gogh with his departure. And on December 23, 1888, he decided to leave the yellow house and spend the night in a hotel. Vincent thought the artist had left. The next morning, all of Arles was seething with the news that Van Gogh had suffered a fit of insanity that night. The artist cut off an earlobe, wrapped it in a scarf and took it to a brothel to give it to a prostitute. Returning home, Van Gogh lost consciousness. In this state, he was found by the police, who were called by the inhabitants of the brothel. Vincent was taken to the city hospital, and Gauguin left without saying goodbye. The artists never met again.

Working on Starry Night. After the story with Gauguin, Van Gogh was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy. Vincent agreed to stay in the monastery hospital for the mentally ill in Saint-Remy.

Unlike other patients, Van Gogh was not assigned to the clinic. After daily work, he could leave the monastery walls, could return to his cell. He was under such supervision as was deemed necessary, and as independent as possible; and Van Gogh believed that the treatment would help him. The low wall that surrounded the monastery remained for many weeks in his imagination a boundary that he could not cross. Striving for recovery, the voluntary patient remained within limits that were not binding on him. He wanted to find safety and protection. Gradually, he became interested in the surrounding landscape, fascinated by cypress trees, olive groves and rare vegetation on the hills. The motives surrounding the artist already possessed that strange originality, that dark, demonic side, to which his art more and more aspired.

During his stay in the monastery, Van Gogh in June 1889 painted the painting "Starry Night", fantasizing this plot. Perhaps the influence of Gauguin, who believed that one should work more with imagination than with nature, affected here. The artist is looking down at the village from an imaginary high point. To her left, a cypress rushes into the sky, to her right, an olive grove crowds, shaped like a cloud, and waves of mountains run towards the horizon. The manner in which Vincent interprets these newly found motifs evokes associations with fire, fog and the sea, and the elemental force of nature is combined with the intangible cosmic drama of the stars. The eternal spontaneity of the Universe at the same time idyllically rocks the dwelling of man in the cradle and threatens him. The village itself could be anywhere: it could be Saint-Remy or Nuenen at night. The spire of the church seems to reach for the elements, being both an antenna and a beacon, it resembles the Eiffel Tower (whose passion was always reflected in Van Gogh's night landscapes). Together with the vault of heaven, the details of the landscape sing of the miracle of creation.

Another night landscape of Van Gogh - "Night Cafe Terrace"

“I painted a landscape with olives and a new study of the starry sky,” Van Gogh wrote about this picture to his brother Theo, “and although I have not seen the last paintings of Gauguin and Bernard, I am deeply convinced that the two studies mentioned are written in the same spirit. When these two studies have been before your eyes for some time, you will get from them a much more complete idea of ​​the things that we discussed with Gauguin and Bernard, and which occupy us, than from my letters. This is not a return to romanticism or religious ideas, no. It is through Delacroix, that is, with the help of color and design, more arbitrary than illusory precision, that rural nature can be expressed sooner than it seems.

Features of the picture. Starry Night was not Van Gogh's first attempt at depicting the night sky. A year earlier, in Arles, the artist painted the painting Starry Night over the Rhone. Night scenes attracted the master, he often worked in the dark, attaching candles to his hat, as the old masters did.

Now the painting "Starry night over the Rhone" is stored in Paris

Van Gogh wrote to Theo that he often thinks about the stars: “Whenever I see the stars, I begin to dream - just as involuntarily as I dream, looking at the black dots that mark cities on a geographical map. Why, I ask myself, should the bright dots in the sky be less accessible to us than the black dots on the map of France? Just as we are driven by a train when we go to Rouen or Tarascon, death takes us to the stars. However, in this reasoning, only one thing is indisputable: while we live, we cannot go to a star, just as, having died, we cannot board a train. It is quite probable that cholera, syphilis, consumption, cancer are nothing but celestial means of transportation, playing the same role as steamboats, omnibuses, and trains on earth. And natural death from old age is tantamount to walking.” While working on Starry Night, the artist wrote that he still needs religion, which is why he paints stars.

There are many interpretations of the Starry Night painting. Some even note that it accurately conveys the position of the stars in the June night sky in 1889. And this is quite likely. But the writhing spiral lines have nothing to do with the northern lights, the Milky Way, some spiral nebula, or anything like that. According to other interpretations, Van Gogh painted his own Garden of Gethsemane. As proof of this assumption, there is a discussion about Christ in the Garden of Gethsman, which Van Gogh at that time was in correspondence with the artists Gauguin and Bernard. This is also possible. It is also possible that this picture also reflects the forebodings and mental suffering of the painter himself. But biblical allegories run through all the works of Van Gogh, and he did not need a special plot for this. Rather, it was a desire for a synthesis in which scientific, philosophical and personal ideas were compared. "Starry Night" is an attempt to convey a state of shock, shock, and cypresses, olives and mountains served only as a catalyst. Then Van Gogh was more than ever interested in the material essence of his subjects, as well as their symbolic meaning.

It is noteworthy that many scientists in Van Gogh's paintings reflect natural phenomena. Facts about how the works of the Dutch artist help researchers were collected in their material "Komsomolskaya Pravda".

The original painting "Starry Night" (oil on canvas 73.7x92.1) is kept in New York at the Museum of Modern Art. The work moved there in 1941 from a private collection.

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Which Russian museums have Van Gogh masterpieces

Paintings by Vincent van Gogh can be seen in Moscow and St. Petersburg. So, in the Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin, “Red Vineyards in Arles”, “Sea in Sainte-Marie”, “Portrait of Dr. Felix Rey”, “Walk of Prisoners” and “Landscape in Auvers after the rain” are kept. And in the Hermitage there are four works by the famous Dutchman: “Memories of a Garden in Etten (Ladies of Arles)”, “Arles Arena”, “Bush”, “Huts”.

The painting "Red Vineyards" is one of the few works by Van Gogh that was bought during the life of the artist

The material uses data from the book “Van Gogh. Complete Works” by Ingo F. Walter and Rainer Metzger.