Tuesday, November 15, 2011

NYC - MoMA: Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night

"This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise," the artist wrote to his brother Theo, "with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big."

Rooted in imagination and memory, The Starry Night embodies an inner, subjective expression of van Gogh's response to nature, says the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

In thick sweeping brushstrokes, a flamelike cypress unites the churning sky and the quiet village below. The village was partly invented, and the church spire evokes van Gogh's native land, the Netherlands.

During his stay in the hospital at St Remy he made several studies of the hospital interiors, such as Vestibule of the Asylum and Saint-Remy (September 1889). Some of the work from this time is characterized by swirls—including one of his best-known paintings The Starry Night.

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