Viewing Notes: Today the response The Starry Night provokes is based in part upon its celebrity, but also on its universality. Throughout the ages people have been drawn to the night sky, to its stillness, sublimity, and infinitude, which together evoke in us emotions of peace and humility, awe and wonder. In The Starry Night, van Gogh fused those feelings with a sense of the surging energies of terrestrial nature, which he conveyed—in terms of his own style—with the confidence of his composition, the dynamism of his brush, and the resonance of his color. Painted from memories of observed experience, recollections of pictures seen long ago, and in creative competition with colleagues whose new work van Gogh could only imagine, The Starry Night is a painting made on the edge, by confidently taking risks. In isolation he created a work entirely and unforgettably in his own style. From Richard Thomson, Vincent van Gogh: The Starry Night, New York: The Museum of Modern Art (2008)
Style: Post-Impressionism
Provenance: Acquired through the Lillie P.Bliss Bequest
