Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night

Vincent van Gogh painted Starry Night in 1889 while living at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Van Gogh was free to live in the gardens and was allowed to paint outdoors, read, and have his own room where he could withdraw. He was even given a studio. While he suffered from bouts of clinical depression, he was able to produce some of his most well-known paintings during this time.

After suffering from occasional hallucinations and bouts of paranoia, he was diagnosed with the early stages of schizophrenia. But it wasn't long before his mental health took a turn for the worse. His symptoms worsened dramatically as he slipped into deep depressive episodes. A major shift in his work occurred around that time as he abandoned the bright colors of the beginning and returned to using darker hues and more muted tones.

How Much Is Starry Night Worth?

It is impossible to place a value on such a famous and treasured work of art. A recent auction sale of other works by Vincent Van Gogh has produced final prices up to $80 million for the most expensive item. As Van Gogh's most well-known painting worldwide, Starry Night's price is estimated to be well over 100 million dollars.

Starry Night conveys Van Gogh’s growing interest in color and darkness. Starry Night, painted just 21 years after the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole experience, is cinematic. It’s filled with panic and peaks and valleys between tremendous colors. Overtones of grey and darkness indicate his growing sense of melancholy and hope within him. Starry Night is also about the journey of the self whereas, sleeping poignantly in a hospital room, van Gogh sought more sensory freedom by painting in the dark. It was a catalyst for many of the self-discovery paintings that follow. Many of the paintings that speak of moods of melancholy, curiosity, isolation, longing, and the extremes of longing and pleasure are vital counterparts to Starry Night. The story of Vincent van Gogh could be the story of humanity. We are all on a journey with the stars.

Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night Meaning and Interpretation

Starry Night is a painting that is dark, brooding, and intensely moody. The Starry Night painting is part of The Sun, the Night, the Mountain, and Other Poems. These poems represent a significant portion of his oeuvre. The poem, written around the same time as Starry Night, begins as a novella. The poem includes fantastical elements, as well.

The Morning of the Great Sexual Novel I sat in the garden through September. In the morning all the flowers sprouted new leaves, but I could not eat them — it is forbidden to eat the new growth of our own garden — each new flower became a new forbidden fruit. On the contrary, for all the beauty of the meadow, I remain ardently attached to the old rosemary whose petals are still full of dew; we had influenced it to bloom only yesterday. I would have written about that flower the moment the dew reached its full strength, but then it was already late autumn, and so long ago. The last fiery bloom of the dewdrops on its petals and then turning to the ground, with its last drop, stood erect, facing the sun and our arms around each other, a victim of old love. Later, I saw that the imagined flower for the evening is likewise a rosemary whose daylight has already burned behind her petals. Thanksgiving for Me In one corner an enormous ribcage has been constructed, fitted with feet, and hinges taken from shells; in the other corner a turkey is standing, head cut to pieces and stuffed, spreading its rice-like belly. Under the turkey, and hidden from the curious, a little woman squats on the ground — who I know too well; I heard her laugh when I first saw her. She does not serve myself, she told me when she learned I was coming. Your plate of stuffing will herself be the only stuffing I served. At the present time I must spare neither her sorrow, nor her fasting, even though in forgiving her I, too, am forgiving myself.

Complementing these visceral scenes are sensory vignettes. Van Gogh is known for having a particular distaste for pain. For instance, in Starry Night The Morning of the Great Sexual Novel, described above, the painter describes how he ate only an apple he had taken from a tree. His mate reprimanded him for eating it too quickly; he advised her to eat slowly in order to enjoy the taste; a grown-up, wouldn’t eat fruit without explaining its true value. Vincent van Gogh’s self-portraits are full of such topical and sensuous subjects.

How To Paint Starry Night

The infamous Van Gogh style brushstrokes are created at the end of his paintings by using the impasto technique. The swirly sky in the painting is what gives it its unique look. To achieve a high-quality replica, you must create these swirls with a certain speed and consistency, because this is where the most distinct and recognizable details are shown. The original painting measures 73 x 92 cm. In order to create the same effect as the original size, you should use a larger brush. Long, thick strokes are necessary for creating a convincing painting. If your brush strokes are too short or too thin, the effect will be weak and the painting will not gain the depth and textures desired.

Van Gogh had to find a way to embrace personal creation. He began sketching. His style was the creation of pictures - expressing himself through painting and drawing the canvas so that the painting became the expression of his inner self. Indeed, the painting was a reflection of himself. Without self-consciousness, self-ascribed identity, or any pretense of humanity, van Gogh painted the nakedness of the saints, a stark contrast against the richness and humanity of the well-fed, well-clothed king - St. Paul.

If you have ever sat still and poured yourself into a Pinterest board or looked at endlessly-perfect photos of landscapes on Pinterest, then perhaps you can relate. These artists are far from alone in injecting humanity into their works. Indeed, the more human an image is, the more appealing it is to the human brain. The brain tries as best it can to map the world and make connections between things. Shifting your mindset to be as objective as possible when creating art may be an effective way to combat delivery of your art in such a customarily humanistic way. Van Gogh's trajectory may not be the most exemplary. But I like to think of him living his best life all along. A painting comes to him; it's not just something he fashions, but he makes it just as he sees it; he completes the painting and then retreats into thoughts of those past experiences. He may not have labeled his work Art, but he would certainly have labeled it a journey. An opened mind becomes creative. The exploration and discovery of the landscape can be a pleasurable form of catharsis. There is a hugely positive social aspect as well to van Gogh's life. Surely van Gogh wasn't feverishly perfect all of the time. There were many dark dashes in his maintenance of himself. But he was driven by some powerful intuition. Maybe he saw divinity in the painting and how painting fills the soul with beautiful awareness, devotion, and gratitude. Perhaps he drew from his own experiences and learned that often the best art is the most personal.

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