SHOP ART ONLINE: Van Gogh 2019 Wall Calendars

Vincent Van Gogh's "The Starry Night"

Vincent Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" is noted one of the most famous paintings known to western art and one of his most distinctive works as well. In our article for today we will have a look at some of the circumstances surrounding his artwork and an overview of the man himself and the difficulties he lived through.

Vincent Van Gogh (1853 to 1890), was the son of a Protestant minister. Early life experience found Van Gogh exercising his father religious influences which brought him to the slums of London to do missionary work and to the mining fields of Belgium. From those troubled experiences Van Gogh's turned to art and painting. In his short lifetime Van Gogh produced over 2000 works of art including oils on canvas , watercolors, sketches and drawings. For the most part Van Gogh was a self taught artist who enjoyed painting what we saw.

Early artistic influences resulting in a move to Paris in 1886 where Impressionism was abound would seem evident yet Van Gogh's more stronger influence came from artist Eugene Delacroix ( 1798 to 1863) works. Furthermore, in a self evolution of impressionism the use of embolden expression of color and strong complimentary values seemed to compel Van Gogh's technique.

Van Gogh has been often thought of as the embodiment of the stereotypical "tormented artist" or more simply as being a misunderstood artist in his time. He was never a financially successful artist in any means and remained poor throughout his lifetime. Van Gogh did suffer from depression and was considered to have mental health issues. His most famous work entitled "The Starry Night" was completed in 1889. At the time, Van Gogh was "residing" at a self imposed visit to a mental asylum at Saint Paul-de-Mausole located near the township of Saint-Remy-de-Provence. It is here where Van Gogh is known to have painted "The Starry Night".

While Van Gogh was known for painting what he saw it is interesting to note that "The Starry Night"

represented a departure from this norm. The work is not drawing upon the local views of the township of Saint Remy and is more reminiscent of his Van Gogh's Dutch homeland. "The Starry Night" offered swirling shapes and use of dark and light values gave it a dream like quality. In the foreground of the painting we find a large cypress tree - a common subject favored by Van Gogh. It's dark, looming presence sets up the slightly lighter values featuring a small village just catching some illumination from above. The church steeple and spire shown mid ground were common to Van Gogh's native Holland landscape. The sky swirling and dark and somewhat foreboding used concentric circles executed in a painterly manner. The technique Van Gogh executed with focused on short brush strokes and full and bold use of oil pigment. The overall color scheme relies on different values of color ranging from pastel like blues to dark shades of blue. The use of various yellows - Van Gogh's favorite color compliment the stars above bringing out color contrasts to the blue tones.

Post Impressionism extended its influence from about 1886 to 1905. It's greatest proponents include Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, George Seurat and of course Vincent Van Gogh as well. The movement sought out bolder avenues of expression and color the more pastel like views Impressionism lacked. Fauvism eventually emerged from the post-impressionists but possibly the greatest era of art was coming to a close giving way the modern era of abstraction that was to eventually to follow. Van Gogh works still remains influential, and even popular to the masses today as his art captured the fascination and wonder of all who care to gaze upon his artwork.