Starry Night Analysis

Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) is a song written by Don Mclean. Don McClean, “Donald,” III is an American singer-songwriter. He is best known for his 1971 album American Pie. American Pie is best known for McClean’s two hits “American Pie,” and “Vincent.” “I was sitting on the veranda one morning, reading a biography of Van Gogh, and suddenly I knew I had to write a song arguing that he wasn’t crazy. So I sat down with a print of Starry Night and wrote the lyrics out on a paper bag.” (Brown) Starry, Starry Night is a pre-impressionist painting by Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh painted Starry, Starry Night when he voluntarily submitted himself to Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, an asylum for the mentally ill in Saint-Rémy. Vincent Van Gogh was born March
The piece is oil on canvas, and is 73.7 x 92.1 cm. Starry, Starry night is home to The Museum of Modern Art in New York. “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 Gogh’s The Starry Night are ingrained in the minds of many as an expression of the artist’s turbulent state of mind.” (Khan Academy) Van Gogh had the idea of a blue sky at night with dots of yellow starts in his mind long before he actually painted it. Van Gogh created the piece in late June of early 1989. “A starry sky, for example, well—it’s a thing that I’d like to try to do, but how to arrive at that unless I decide to work at home and from the imagination?” (596, 12 April 1888). Vincent Van Gogh painted Starry, Starry night when he voluntarily checked himself into a mental health institute in at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole. He painted this piece solely from memory. Van Gogh observed the night sky intensely. After he left Paris, he was able to observe the night sky more
If you look carefully, you’ll see that some stars are lemony, others have a pink, green, forget-me-not blue glow. And without laboring the point, it’s clear to paint a starry sky it’s not nearly enough to put white spots on blue-black. (678, 14 September 1888)” In the rural parts of France the view of the night sky was no longer blocked and hidden by the street lights which were heavily starting to come into use in the 19th century. Van Gogh observed the night sky for hours. Van Gogh told his brother Theo that he hoped that others would look at his painting and it would give them an idea of how to do night effects better than he did himself. Starry, Starry Night, with Van Gogh’s own night effects, is said to have been the foundation for the pre-impressionist painters. It has also become the perhaps the most widely known, and famous painting in Van Gogh’s collection.

Vincent Van Gogh was a post-impressionist painter. Post-impressionist painters were more focused on symbolism and personal meaning than replicating exactly what they saw. “Through the use of simplified colors and definitive forms, their art was characterized by a renewed aesthetic sense as well as abstract tendencies.” (The Met’s Heilbronn Timeline of Art History) They were more focused on the deeper meaning than the actual object or subject matter itself. Post-impressionist rejected