BellaOnline Forums Education Art Appreciation Starry Night - Vincent van Gogh

Whew! Now I do not feel so looney. I almost always feel myself within a painting if I really like and the artist is good, like Van Gogh.

In the Wheat Field With Crows I also sense a rushing wind coming up and maybe that startled the crows. Hmmm! bet Vincent and I would have got along great...

Starry Night has always been one of my favorite pieces of art! One of the best examples of early expressionism, in my opinion.

It is dark and brooding. Much like it belongs to a scene from 'Wuthering Heights'. It is so unlike the starry night I'm used to with sparkling diamonds sailing above.

I love van Gogh's work. And I have to stick my astronomy nose into this discussions. Van Gogh was a very keen amateur astronomer with a good knowledge of the night sky and his starry representations are reckoned to be accurate.

What is extra interesting about this one is that some astronomers have sseen it as a representation of the sky from San Remy BUT... Look at that amazing spiral in the middle of it and look at this:



That's something only visible through a good telescope. The sketch above is by Irish astronomer Lord Rosse.

Van Gogh seems to be capturing the seen and the unseen reality.

I had forgotten all about this thread and just came across it again. Here is an image I edited and circled what I see as "faces" within the painting:



I forgot to circle one more, the one closest to the moon.

Can anyone else make out the faces? If so, do you think van Gogh purposely put them in there because this painting is maybe a nightmare he had with images of himself and others swirling around in his mind?

Regardless of why he painted it or what it meant to him, I see it as beautiful and very spiritual.

Erm, no, don't see any faces. But I do see M51.

Maybe Folk/Myth people see faces and Astronomers see spiral galaxies! lol