When we think of Vincent van Gogh, two things always come to mind, 1) he’s the crazy guy who cut off his own ear, and 2) he painted The Starry Night. Well, yes, he did cut a part of his ear off, and he did paint The Starry Night. However, why should one man be only known for two things when there is so much more to be known about him? I think many of us have at least seen an image of The Starry Night, if not the actual thing. Just because so many people have seen it or because it’s on postcards and puzzles, what makes that particular painting so worth its popularity? I feel the only reason The Starry Night is famous is because we have made it out to be famous. When I think of this situation, I call it the “Paris Hilton effect”. As silly and ridiculous as that may sound, it is definitely true. This effect takes place when a person or thing becomes famous for being famous. We have seen this many, many times and this painting is no exception. The Starry Night came into the spotlight mainly due to becoming marketed by companies who wanted to incorporate the image on a product and make a few bucks off it in their wallet. After being seen by thousands of people, the painting itself has somewhat been depreciated in value. It has not gone down in dollar value, but the value of what it truly stands for artistically. Personally, Vincent van Gogh is considered one of my favorite artists, but not because of what he paints, but because of what he incorporates into his paintings. Sometimes we have to dig deep and go beyond the oil paint to discover the true feelings and emotions of an artist. If we just go to a gallery, stand in front of a bright and colorful painting, we can say the artist had good artistic abilities, but would that be all we see? Will we just see colorful paint, or a story behind it all?
First of all, let me begin by first discussing the physical part of the painting. In other words, what the eye sees when looking at The Starry Night. I think what the viewer typically notices first are the bright and cool colors of the image. There are a few greens and oranges, but the main colors are blue and yellow, two complimentary colors. Within the landscape (Saint-Remy, France), there are several houses, trees, a church, and a flame-like cypress tree to the very left. Though the landscape is an important feature to the painting, the sky does take up the majority of the painting and is part of the reason why the image has received such great attention. The sky contains white swirly clouds, a golden crescent moon (waxing crescent), and eleven pulsating stars. To the common eye, these are simply just objects that the artist added to make the painting look pretty. However, to the one who lives and breathes art history, these are merely images, but a hidden story of an artist.
Because I have discussed incorporated imagery of the painting, I can now look at the history of The Starry Night. Painted in 1889 in Arles, France, Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night not from observing a landscape, but relied on his own memory. There are two possible reasons why van Gogh painted the picture from memory and not from direct observation. The first possible reason may have come from the constant competitiveness from van Gogh’s best critic, Paul Gauguin. Paul Gauguin, another impressionist artist of the time, most notable for Yellow Christ with the Artist (1889) and Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897), was an artist and man who found common interest with van Gogh and later befriended him toward the end of his life. Gauguin and van Gogh constantly traded opinions about each others artwork, with some comments hitting harder than the last. Like most artists, even today, they tend to have a huge ego. It happens and it is quite common, whether it’s in art, music, or film. I suppose we can say that Paul Gauguin had a major problem with his ego. Gauguin seemed to feel that he was much of a better artist than van Gogh simply because he could create an image from his memory or imagination, and Vincent could only paint from direct observation. This lead van Gogh to feel less of an artist, but it challenged him to work from his memory to prove Gauguin wrong.
The second reason was because of van Gogh’s present situation during that time. When we look at The Starry Night, we usually tend to get this warm fuzzy feeling that makes us feel good inside. The blue and yellow are both cool colors that incite calmness, so automatically we assume the painting to be cheerful and pleasant. What if I said the painting was created not in an art studio, but in an asylum? Well, I’d probably get a lot of confused looks, but, yes, it is true that Vincent van Gogh did, indeed, create The Starry Night from inside his room within an asylum in Saint-Remy, France. Known as Saint-Paul Asylum, van Gogh was treated there after he checked himself in for mental instability. The artist did, however, take frequent strolls in the yard of the facility, which provided him with the imagery he needed to create The Starry Night. However, The Starry Night was not created under a “starry night”, but during the day. Van Gogh did have a view of the landscape from his room, perhaps not the best, but going back to the competitive relationship of van Gogh and Gauguin, this was a way to prove a point.
Now that I have discussed the painting from a direct observational perspective and from a historical account, I can put all this together to explain the symbolic significance of the imagery within the painting. As I have mentioned above, it is somewhat depressing to know that the painting we’ve all come to know and love was painted in an asylum during a time of pain and suffering in the mind of a brilliant artist. Aside from painting The Starry Night in an asylum, the image itself still remains dark, but at the same time, spiritual. A fact most people may not know about Vincent van Gogh was that he was such a spiritual and religious figure. Growing up, Vincent was raised in a Methodist home where he dreamed of some day becoming a pastor. Vincent had failed every exam he took at a theological school to become a pastor and was left depressed and eventually called it quits. As a teenager, Vincent struggled, as most teenagers do, but he started to suffer mentally to the point his own family disowned him. However, most people would expect van Gogh to lose sight of his spiritual beliefs after so much turmoil, but his hardship only led him to God even more. Though van Gogh was not as religious during his final years, remnants of God still remained with the artist, and it can be seen in some of van Gogh’s final paintings such as this one and his previous painting Starry Night over the Rhone (1888). All of this information may seem a bit much, and perhaps overwhelming, but every bit of information helps us understand The Starry Night a little easier. To restate what I discussed earlier, The Starry Night is dark and spiritual at the same time, but why is this so? Let me first discuss the dark imagery of the painting and then I will leave off with a more spiritual and uplifting conclusion.
For those who are not as familiar with The Starry Night, the painting is simply, again as I have previously stated, just a painting done by a well-known artist. However, for the art historian’s at heart, this is an image of life and death. To say this image deals with life and death is not an assumption, but a fact that has always been sitting under our noses, or in front of our eyes, the entire time. If we take a look at the flame-like plant at the left, we will easily find our answer to this mystery. The object may just look like a flame or plant, but it is actually called a cypress. This cypress plays a very important part in this painting, because a cypress is not any kind of plant that we see everyday. This specific plant is found in some gardens, but mainly in cemeteries. The cypress is definitely flame-like as it leads the eye upward into the night sky. However, just to the right of the flamboyant cypress is a chapel that coincidentally resembles the shape of the large plant. The body of the church is wide, like the cypress, and eventually comes to a sharp point, which also leads to the starry night sky. Because of this strange anomaly, this may be referring to the inner spiritual struggles van Gogh dealt with toward the end of his life. Both of these symbolic subjects point upward to the sky, but in reality, it’s not pointing toward the sky, but to heaven. Van Gogh may be confused about death, or overjoyed that his suffering is not going to last forever, but end in heaven.
As we have already noticed, the painting’s main colors are blue and yellow. Again, both are complementary colors that incite calmness. I believe van Gogh wanted to create a feeling of calmness and peacefulness because of how he was feeling during the time of this painting. One cannot even fully imagine what van Gogh was going through. His ill mind must have caused so much misery. When people become sad they try to make themselves feel better by being around uplifting things or people. Though blue is considered the color of melancholy, the colors really do provide a feeling of calmness.
One of the biggest mysteries about this painting begs the question, is there really a yin-yang in The Starry Night? The answer is, we do not know for sure. However, if we take a look at the giant cloud in the center of the image, is it not in the shape of a yin-yang? Though this is not a known fact, it would seem very possible, due to the spiritual background of van Gogh. In the Asian philosophy, or belief, the yin-yang refers to opposite forces (i.e. life and death, good and evil, and etc.). In this case for van Gogh, the issue would possibly be the conflict between life and death. This may prove his struggles with how he lived and the fear of what may happen after he passes.
What makes The Starry Night such a memorable piece is the painting itself, but I do believe the stars and the moon do, in fact, give the painting a lot of credit. As I promised, I would leave off with a spiritual and uplifting conclusion, so with everything we just went over, can we say there was no hope for van Gogh? In Starry Night over the Rhone, van Gogh uses stars to not only symbolize the divine, but as well as to create the Big Dipper (Ursa Major). In The Starry Night, we do not necessarily know if van Gogh was trying to incorporate actual astronomical knowledge, but it is safer to say he was incorporating the heavenly divine. Historians believe van Gogh was referring to biblical scripture when he added the stars and the moon into The Starry Night. In Genesis 37:9, there is a small, but important part that may connect the Holy Scripture to van Gogh’s painting, but in short, “… the moon and eleven stars bowing to me”. The eleven stars in this piece may simply be coincidental, but then again, maybe not.Here is a video of a song that is solely dedicated to the great artist. It is Don McLean's Starry Starry Night. Listen to the lyrics, because without having to look at any paintings we will get a better understanding of the man who truly lived.
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