What is the definition of the word icon? One example of such an icon is the painting is "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh. Few people actually know the name of this famous painting, but when they see the picture they recognize having seen it many times throughout their lives in textbooks, museums, prints in people's homes, businesses, etc. "Starry Night" is widely known simply as "a painting that some guy named Van Gogh did". The painting is a depiction of a town at night. Between the sky and the town in the back of the painting there is a mountain range. In the sky there are swirls of blues and white and yellows, along with eleven brightly shining stars and a glorious half-moon. .
There is also a dark structure reaching up towards the sky on the left hand side of the painting. Just looking at it one is reminded of the childhood story "Jack and the Beanstalk". Tendril looking things sprout from the ground and shoot up towards the sky while intertwining with one another. Because of the darkness this structure has, along with it shapelessness, it is difficult to venture a guess as to what it represents. One source describes it as "a tree, like a black flame" (Whitney), which would explain the tendrils and the towering height of the structure. .
Charles A. Whitney examined the swirls depicted in the sky more closely and "was struck by the remarkable coincidence between the swirling pattern at the center of the painting and a drawing that had been made several decades earlier by the astronomer Lord Rosse with a gigantic telescope. It was the first rendering of a spiral galaxy, now known to be a collection of stars similar to our own Milky Way" (Whitney). Whitney goes on to explain how it is impossible, now, to tell if Van Gogh consciously meant to copy the work of Lord Rosse. He also describes how this pattern type occurs in more of Van Gogh's night paintings that were done in that time frame.
Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night intrigues me with his playful use of lines. ... Isn't that what Van Gogh wants us to see and feel? ... I could stare and dream about Starry Night all day and never tire of it. ... Van Gogh was a man with a vision and it's executed beautifully in Starry Night. ... Van Gogh really takes us to a spiritual place. ...
Starry Night Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night is a marvelous painting in which Van Gogh paints a picture that is colorful and descriptive. ... Van Gogh portrays a small French town located in the countryside. ... Van Gogh uses oil to paint this work on a 72cm x 92cm canvas board. ... In the Starry Night mood and description play a major part. ... This painting can be described as one of Van Gogh's best. ...
A mono-toned starry night with twisty, long lines and cracked short lines unexpectedly generates a wonderful sight. ... In many viewers' eyes, the Starry Night is just a simple night painting, but the fact is that it is famous for having many different symbolic contents and colors. The painting is called the Starry Night, and just as the name implies, it is on bestrewing many stars sky. From the Starry Night, there is the dark blue sky full of some swirling clouds, many shining stars, and a luminous moon. ... Van Gogh's expression and mood is located at trough. ...
By looking at three Van Gogh's artworks named "The Potato Eaters," "Sower at Sunset," and "Starry Night," it can be seen how Van Gogh's technique blossomed from a dark bud to a bright flower. ... The painting "Starry Night" is another of Van Gogh's most famous works completed in 1889, four years after "The Potato Eaters" was made. ... In "Starry Night," Van Gogh used clear outlines around the objects such as the mountains, the buildings, and the tree. ... However, for me, the best painting among them is "Starry Nig...
Vincent Van Gogh, the creator of The Starry Night, was born in Groot Zundert, The Netherlands on March 30th, 1853. ... It is at this asylum that Van Gogh painted his famous The Starry Night. ... Van Gogh's Starry Night paved the way for paintings with movement and colors that seemed to come alive. ... Whether The Starry Night is a religious subject is unclear. ... I feel that The Starry Night has a timeless quality of a masterpiece. ...
The Starry Night Anne Sexton poem The Starry Night reflects the Vincent von Gogh's painting The Starry Night very well. ... Van Gogh painting "The Starry Night was completed near the mental asylum of Saint-Remy, 13 months before Van Gogh's death" (online 1) and Sexton were depressed most of the time. Though there is not much information on Van Gogh's life, we can see form Sexton's life why she was inspired by this painting. ... Van Gogh painted furiously and The Starry Night vibrates with rockets of burning yellow while planets gyrate like cartwheels. ...
Vincent Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" (1989) has proven, through out time, to be an outstanding demonstration of how emotions can be conveyed through color and brushstroke. ... The Sky "The Starry Night- is an oil-on-canvas depiction of a night scene in France portraying a cypress tree in the foreground along with a twisted yet mesmerizing sky, eleven explosive and magnified stars, and a quaint little village. ... Van Gogh painted the sky with overlapping, rapid, and curving strokes that created a great dynamic, swirling motion. ... It upsets the balance to what had could have been a m...
"The Starry Night," by Vincent Van Gogh is an example of an expressionist's perspective of an unusual, chaotic, star-studded night, above a small town located in the middle of a hilly landscape. ... Van Gogh paints the town in straight, diagonals and horizontals, and does not pays much attention to small detail. ... Vincent Van Gogh is known for his expressive line which is loose and free, almost out of control. In his painting, "The Starry Night," Van Gogh represents life and death through his choice of free flowing line and the basic colors of blues and purples. ... This use of expre...
When I first encountered this painting I was taken back by Vincent Van Goghs usage of yellows and blues. ... I feel the tree is there to give a good indication as to how far Vincent Van Gogh may have been when he painted the town, as well as a scale for the homes in the distance. ... Vincent Van Gogh may have used the illusion of light to reflect some of the beauty of the countryside in the twig light hours. Not only are the homes and the sky elaborately colored, Vincent Van Gogh even went on to paint the mountains behind the town, which appear to be rolling or the wind just flowing over i...
