The Starry Night - Wikipedia The Starry Night `` Starry Night '' redirects here. For other uses, see Starry Night ( disambiguation ). This article is about the 1889 painting. For the similar 1888 Van Gogh painting, see Starry Night Over the Rhône. The Starry Night Artist Vincent van Gogh Year 1889 Catalogue F612 JH1731 Medium Oil on canvas 73.7 cm × 92.1 cm ( 29 in × ​ 36 ⁄ in ) Location Museum of Modern Art, New York City The Starry Night is an oil on canvas by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east - facing window of his asylum room at Saint - Rémy - de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an idealized village. It has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City since 1941, acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest. Regarded as among Van Gogh 's finest works, The Starry Night is one of the most recognized paintings in the history of Western culture. Contents 1 The asylum 2 The painting 3 Interpretations 4 Provenance 5 Painting materials 6 See also 7 References 8 External links The asylum The Monastery of Saint - Paul de Mausole In the aftermath of the 23 December 1888 breakdown that resulted in the self - mutilation of his left ear, Van Gogh voluntarily admitted himself to the Saint - Paul - de-Mausole lunatic asylum on 8 May 1889. Housed in a former monastery, Saint - Paul - de-Mausole catered to the wealthy and was less than half full when Van Gogh arrived, allowing him to occupy not only a second - story bedroom but also a ground - floor room for use as a painting studio. During the year Van Gogh stayed at the asylum, the prolific output of paintings he had begun in Arles continued. During this period, he produced some of the best - known works of his career, including the Irises from May 1889, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the blue self - portrait from September, 1889, in the Musée d'Orsay. The Starry Night was painted mid-June by around 18 June, the date he wrote to his brother Theo to say he had a new study of a starry sky. The painting Although The Starry Night was painted during the day in Van Gogh 's ground - floor studio, it would be inaccurate to state that the picture was painted from memory. The view has been identified as the one from his bedroom window, facing east, a view which Van Gogh painted variations of no fewer than twenty - one times, including The Starry Night. `` Through the iron - barred window, '' he wrote to his brother, Theo, around 23 May 1889, `` I can see an enclosed square of wheat... above which, in the morning, I watch the sun rise in all its glory. '' Van Gogh depicted the view at different times of day and under various weather conditions, including sunrise, moonrise, sunshine - filled days, overcast days, windy days, and one day with rain. While the hospital staff did not allow Van Gogh to paint in his bedroom, he was able there to make sketches in ink or charcoal on paper ; eventually he would base newer variations on previous versions. The pictorial element uniting all of these paintings is the diagonal line coming in from the right depicting the low rolling hills of the Alpilles mountains. In fifteen of the twenty - one versions, cypress trees are visible beyond the far wall enclosing the wheat field. Van Gogh telescoped the view in six of these paintings, most notably in F717 Wheat Field with Cypresses and The Starry Night, bringing the trees closer to the picture plane. One of the first paintings of the view was F611 Mountainous Landscape Behind Saint - Rémy, now in Copenhagen. Van Gogh made a number of sketches for the painting, of which F1547 The Enclosed Wheatfield After a Storm is typical. It is unclear whether the painting was made in his studio or outside. In his June 9 letter describing it, he mentions he had been working outside for a few days. Van Gogh described the second of the two landscapes he mentions he was working on, in a letter to his sister Wil on 16 June 1889. This is F719 Green Field, now in Prague, and the first painting at the asylum he definitely painted outside en plein air. F1548 Wheat field, Saint - Rémy de Provence, now in New York, is a study for it. Two days later, Vincent wrote Theo that he had painted `` a starry sky ''. The Starry Night is the only nocturne in the series of views from his bedroom window. In early June, Vincent wrote to Theo, `` This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big '' Researchers have determined that Venus was indeed visible at dawn in Provence in the spring of 1889, and was at that time nearly as bright as possible. So the brightest `` star '' in the painting, just to the viewer 's right of the cypress tree, is actually Venus. The moon is stylized, as astronomical records indicate that it actually was waning gibbous at the time Van Gogh painted the picture, and even if the phase of the moon had been its waning crescent at the time, Van Gogh 's moon would not have been astronomically correct. ( For other interpretations of the moon, see below. ) The one pictorial element that was definitely not visible from Van Gogh 's cell is the village, which is based on a sketch F1541v made from a hillside above the village of Saint - Rémy. Pickvance thought F1541v was done later, and the steeple more Dutch than Provençal, a conflation of several Van Gogh had painted and drawn in his Nuenen period, and thus the first of his `` reminisces of the North '' he was to paint and draw early the following year. Hulsker thought a landscape on the reverse F1541r was also a study for the painting. F1548 Wheatfield, Saint - Rémy de Provence, Morgan Library & Museum F719 Green Field, National Gallery in Prague F1547 The Enclosed Wheatfield After a Storm, Van Gogh Museum F611 Mountainous Landscape Behind Saint - Rémy, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek F1541v Bird 's - Eye View of the Village, Van Gogh Museum F1541r Landscape with Cypresses, Van Gogh Museum Interpretations Despite the large number of letters Van Gogh wrote, he said very little about The Starry Night. After reporting that he had painted a starry sky in June, Van Gogh next mentioned the painting in a letter to Theo on or about 20 September 1889, when he included it in a list of paintings he was sending to his brother in Paris, referring to it as a `` night study. '' Of this list of paintings, he wrote, `` All in all the only things I consider a little good in it are the Wheatfield, the Mountain, the Orchard, the Olive trees with the blue hills and the Portrait and the Entrance to the quarry, and the rest says nothing to me '' ; `` the rest '' would include The Starry Night. When he decided to hold back three paintings from this batch in order to save money on postage, The Starry Night was one of the paintings he did n't send. Finally, in a letter to painter Émile Bernard from late November 1889, Van Gogh referred to the painting as a `` failure. '' Van Gogh argued with Bernard and, especially, Paul Gauguin as to whether one should paint from nature, as Van Gogh preferred, or paint what Gauguin called `` abstractions '' : paintings conceived in the imagination, or de tête. In the letter to Bernard, Van Gogh recounted his experiences when Gauguin lived with him for nine weeks in the fall and winter of 1888 : `` When Gauguin was in Arles, I once or twice allowed myself to be led astray into abstraction, as you know... But that was delusion, dear friend, and one soon comes up against a brick wall... And yet, once again I allowed myself to be led astray into reaching for stars that are too big -- another failure -- and I have had my fill of that. '' Van Gogh here is referring to the expressionistic swirls which dominate the upper center portion of The Starry Night. Theo referred to these pictorial elements in a letter to Vincent dated 22 October 1889 : `` I clearly sense what preoccupies you in the new canvases like the village in the moonlight ( The Starry Night ) or the mountains, but I feel that the search for style takes away the real sentiment of things. '' Vincent responded in early November, `` Despite what you say in your previous letter, that the search for style often harms other qualities, the fact is that I feel myself greatly driven to seek style, if you like, but I mean by that a more manly and more deliberate drawing. If that will make me more like Bernard or Gauguin, I ca n't do anything about it. But am inclined to believe that in the long run you 'd get used to it. '' And later in the same letter, he wrote, `` I know very well that the studies drawn with long, sinuous lines from the last consignment were n't what they ought to become, however I dare urge you to believe that in landscapes one will continue to mass things by means of a drawing style that seeks to express the entanglement of the masses. '' But although Van Gogh periodically defended the practices of Gauguin and Bernard, each time he inevitably repudiated them and continued with his preferred method of painting from nature. Like the impressionists he had met in Paris, especially Claude Monet, Van Gogh also favored working in series. He had painted his series of sunflowers in Arles, and he painted the series of cypresses and wheat fields at Saint - Rémy. The Starry Night belongs to this latter series, as well as to a small series of nocturnes he initiated in Arles. Starry Night Over the Rhône, 1888, oil on canvas The nocturne series was limited by the difficulties posed by painting such scenes from nature, i.e., at night. The first painting in the series was Café Terrace at Night, painted in Arles in early September 1888, followed by Starry Night Over the Rhone later that same month. Van Gogh 's written statements concerning these paintings provide further insight into his intentions for painting night studies in general and The Starry Night in particular. Soon after his arrival in Arles in February 1888, Van Gogh wrote to Theo, `` I... need a starry night with cypresses or -- perhaps above a field of ripe wheat ; there are some really beautiful nights here. '' That same week, he wrote to Bernard, `` A starry sky is something I should like to try to do, just as in the daytime I am going to try to paint a green meadow spangled with dandelions. '' He compared the stars to dots on a map and mused that, as one takes a train to travel on earth, `` we take death to reach a star. '' Although at this point in his life Van Gogh was disillusioned by religion, he appears not to have lost his belief in an afterlife. He voiced this ambivalence in a letter to Theo after having painted Starry Night Over the Rhone, confessing to a `` tremendous need for, shall I say the word -- for religion -- so I go outside at night to paint the stars. '' He wrote about existing in another dimension after death and associated this dimension with the night sky. `` It would be so simple and would account so much for the terrible things in life, which now amaze and wound us so, if life had yet another hemisphere, invisible it is true, but where one lands when one dies. '' `` Hope is in the stars, '' he wrote, but he was quick to point out that `` earth is a planet too, and consequently a star, or celestial orb. '' And he stated flatly that The Starry Night was `` not a return to the romantic or to religious ideas. '' Noted art historian Meyer Schapiro highlights the expressionistic aspects of The Starry Night, saying it was created under the `` pressure of feeling '' and that it is a `` visionary ( painting ) inspired by a religious mood. '' Schapiro theorizes that the `` hidden content '' of the work makes reference to the New Testament book of Revelation, revealing an `` apocalyptic theme of the woman in pain of birth, girded with the sun and moon and crowned with stars, whose newborn child is threatened by the dragon. '' ( Schapiro, in the same volume, also professes to see an image of a mother and child in the clouds in Landscape with Olive Trees, painted at the same time and often regarded as a pendant to The Starry Night. ) Art historian Sven Loevgren expands on Schapiro 's approach, again calling The Starry Night a `` visionary painting '' which `` was conceived in a state of great agitation. '' He writes of the `` hallucinatory character of the painting and its violently expressive form, '' although he takes pains to note that the painting was not executed during one of Van Gogh 's incapacitating breakdowns. Loevgren compares Van Gogh 's `` religiously inclined longing for the beyond '' to the poetry of Walt Whitman. He calls The Starry Night `` an infinitely expressive picture which symbolizes the final absorption of the artist by the cosmos '' and which `` gives a never - to - be-forgotten sensation of standing on the threshold of eternity. '' Loevgren praises Schapiro 's `` eloquent interpretation '' of the painting as an apocalyptic vision and advances his own symbolist theory with reference to the eleven stars in one of Joseph 's dreams in the Old Testament book of Genesis. Loevgren asserts that the pictorial elements of The Starry Night `` are visualized in purely symbolic terms '' and notes that `` the cypress is the tree of death in the Mediterranean countries. '' The drawing Cypresses in Starry Night, a reed pen copy executed by Van Gogh after the painting in 1889. Originally held at Kunsthalle Bremen, today part of the disputed Baldin Collection. Art historian Lauren Soth also finds a symbolist subtext in The Starry Night, saying that the painting is a `` traditional religious subject in disguise '' and a `` sublimated image of ( Van Gogh 's ) deepest religious feelings. '' Citing Van Gogh 's avowed admiration for the paintings of Eugène Delacroix, and especially the earlier painter 's use of Prussian blue and citron yellow in paintings of Christ, Soth theorizes that Van Gogh used these colors to represent Christ in The Starry Night. He criticizes Schapiro 's and Loevgren 's biblical interpretations, dependent as they are on a reading of the crescent moon as incorporating elements of the sun. He says it is merely a crescent moon, which, he writes, also had symbolic meaning for Van Gogh, representing `` consolation. '' It is in light of such symbolist interpretations of The Starry Night that art historian Albert Boime presents his study of the painting. As noted above, Boime has proven that the painting depicts not only the topographical elements of Van Gogh 's view from his asylum window but also the celestial elements, identifying not only Venus but also the constellation Aries. He suggests that Van Gogh originally intended to paint a gibbous moon but `` reverted to a more traditional image '' of the crescent moon, and theorizes that the bright aureole around the resulting crescent is a remnant of the original gibbous version. He recounts Van Gogh 's interest in the writings of Victor Hugo and Jules Verne as possible inspiration for his belief in an afterlife on stars or planets. And he provides a detailed discussion of the well - publicized advances in astronomy that took place during Van Gogh 's lifetime. Boime asserts that while Van Gogh never mentioned astronomer Camille Flammarion in his letters, he believes that Van Gogh must have been aware of Flammarion 's popular illustrated publications, which included drawings of spiral nebulae ( as galaxies were then called ) as seen and photographed through telescopes. Boime interprets the swirling figure in the central portion of the sky in The Starry Night to represent either a spiral galaxy or a comet, photographs of which had also been published in popular media. He asserts that the only non-realistic elements of the painting are the village and the swirls in the sky. These swirls represent Van Gogh 's understanding of the cosmos as a living, dynamic place. Harvard astronomer Charles A. Whitney conducted his own astronomical study of The Starry Night contemporaneously with but independent of Boime ( who spent almost his entire career at U.C.L.A. ). While Whitney does not share Boime 's certainty with regard to the constellation Aries, he concurs with Boime on the visibility of Venus in Provence at the time the painting was executed. He also sees the depiction of a spiral galaxy in the sky, although he gives credit for the original to Anglo - Irish astronomer William Parsons, Lord Rosse, whose work Flammarion reproduced. Sketch of the Whirlpool Galaxy by Lord Rosse in 1845, 44 years before Van Gogh 's painting Whitney also theorizes that the swirls in the sky could represent wind, evoking the mistral that had such a profound effect on Van Gogh during the twenty - seven months he spent in Provence. ( It was the mistral which triggered his first breakdown after entering the asylum, in July 1889, less than a month after painting The Starry Night. ) Boime theorizes that the lighter shades of blue just above the horizon show the first light of morning. The village has been variously identified as either a recollection of Van Gogh 's Dutch homeland, or based on a sketch he made of the town of Saint - Rémy. In either case, it is an imaginary component of the picture, not visible from the window of the asylum bedroom. Cypress trees have long been associated with death in European culture, though the question of whether Van Gogh intended for them to have such a symbolic meaning in The Starry Night is the subject of an open debate. In an April 1888, letter to Bernard, Van Gogh referred to `` funereal cypresses, '' though this is possibly similar to saying `` stately oaks '' or `` weeping willows. '' One week after painting The Starry Night, he wrote to his brother Theo, `` The cypresses are always occupying my thoughts. I should like to make something of them like the canvases of the sunflowers, because it astonishes me that they have not yet been done as I see them. '' In the same letter he mentioned `` two studies of cypresses of that difficult shade of bottle green. '' These statements suggest that Van Gogh was interested in the trees more for their formal qualities than for their symbolic connotation. Schapiro refers to the cypress in the painting as a `` vague symbol of a human striving. '' Boime calls it the `` symbolic counterpart of Van Gogh 's own striving for the Infinite through non-orthodox channels. '' Art historian Vojtech Jirat - Wasiutynski says that for Van Gogh the cypresses `` function as rustic and natural obelisks '' providing a `` link between the heavens and the earth. '' ( Some commentators see one tree, others see two or more. ) Loevgren reminds the reader that `` the cypress is the tree of death in the Mediterranean countries. '' Art historian Ronald Pickvance says that with `` its arbitrary collage of separate motifs, '' The Starry Night `` is overtly stamped as an ' abstraction '. '' Pickvance claims that cypress trees were not visible facing east from Van Gogh 's room, and he includes them with the village and the swirls in the sky as products of Van Gogh 's imagination. Boime asserts that the cypresses were visible in the east, as does Jirat - Wasiutyński. Van Gogh biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith concur, saying that Van Gogh `` telescoped '' the view in certain of the pictures of the view from his window, and it stands to reason that Van Gogh would do this in a painting featuring the morning star. Such a compression of depth serves to enhance the brightness of planet. Soth uses Van Gogh 's statement to his brother, that The Starry Night is `` an exaggeration from the point of view of arrangement '' to further his argument that the painting is `` an amalgam of images. '' However, it is by no means certain that Van Gogh was using `` arrangement '' as a synonym for `` composition. '' Van Gogh was, in fact, speaking of three paintings, one of which was The Starry Night, when he made this comment : `` The olive trees with white cloud and background of mountains, as well as the Moonrise and the Night effect, '' as he called it, `` these are exaggerations from the point of view of the arrangement, their lines are contorted like those of the ancient woodcuts. '' The first two pictures are universally acknowledged to be realistic, non-composite views of their subjects. What the three pictures do have in common is exaggerated color and brushwork of the type that Theo referred to when he criticized Van Gogh for his `` search for style ( that ) takes away the real sentiment of things '' in The Starry Night. On two other occasions around this time, Van Gogh used the word `` arrangement '' to refer to color, similar to the way James Abbott McNeill Whistler used the term. In a letter to Gauguin in January 1889, he wrote, `` As an arrangement of colours : the reds moving through to pure oranges, intensifying even more in the flesh tones up to the chromes, passing into the pinks and marrying with the olive and Veronese greens. As an impressionist arrangement of colours, I 've never devised anything better. '' ( The painting he is referring to is La Berceuse, which is a realistic portrait of Augustine Roulin with an imaginative floral background. ) And to Bernard in late November 1889 : `` But this is enough for you to understand that I would long to see things of yours again, like the painting of yours that Gauguin has, those Breton women walking in a meadow, the arrangement of which is so beautiful, the colour so naively distinguished. Ah, you 're exchanging that for something -- must one say the word -- something artificial -- something affected. '' When Van Gogh calls The Starry Night a failure for being an `` abstraction, '' he places the blame on his having painted `` stars that are too big. '' While stopping short of calling the painting a hallucinatory vision, Naifeh and Smith discuss The Starry Night in the context of Van Gogh 's mental illness, which they identify as temporal lobe epilepsy, or latent epilepsy. `` Not the kind, '' they write, `` known since antiquity, that caused the limbs to jerk and the body to collapse ( ' the falling sickness ', as it was sometimes called ), but a mental epilepsy -- a seizing up of the mind : a collapse of thought, perception, reason, and emotion that manifested itself entirely in the brain and often prompted bizarre, dramatic behavior. '' Symptoms of the seizures `` resembled fireworks of electrical impulses in the brain. '' Van Gogh experienced his second breakdown in seven months in July 1889. Naifeh and Smith theorize that the seeds of this breakdown were present when Van Gogh painted The Starry Night, that in giving himself over to his imagination `` his defenses had been breached. '' On that day in mid-June, in a `` state of heightened reality, '' with all the other elements of the painting in place, Van Gogh threw himself into the painting of the stars, producing, they write, `` a night sky unlike any other the world had ever seen with ordinary eyes. '' Provenance After having initially held it back, Van Gogh sent The Starry Night to Theo in Paris on 28 September 1889, along with nine or ten other paintings. Theo died less than six months after Vincent, in January 1891. Theo 's widow, Jo, then became the caretaker of Van Gogh 's legacy. She sold the painting to poet Julien Leclercq in Paris in 1900, who turned around and sold it to Émile Schuffenecker, Gauguin 's old friend, in 1901. Jo then bought the painting back from Schuffenecker before selling it to the Oldenzeel Gallery in Rotterdam in 1906. From 1906 to 1938 it was owned by Georgette P. van Stolk, of Rotterdam, who sold it to Paul Rosenberg, of Paris and New York. It was through Rosenberg that the Museum of Modern Art acquired the painting in 1941. Painting materials The painting was investigated by the scientists at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The pigment analysis has shown that the sky was painted with ultramarine and cobalt blue and for the stars and the moon van Gogh employed the rare pigment indian yellow together with zinc yellow. Details of ' ' The Starry Night ' ' from Vincent van Gogh exposed at the Museum of Modern Art of New York. Moon. Venus. Hills and sky. Left part of the canvas and frame. Stars in the sky. See also Baldin Collection Timbres, espace, mouvement ( an orchestral work by Henri Dutilleux inspired by the painting - 1978 ). References Citations ^ Jump up to : Pickvance 1986, p. 103 ^ Jump up to : Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 747 ^ Jump up to : Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 760 Jump up ^ `` Vincent van Gogh Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works ''. The Art Story. Retrieved 12 June 2015. Starry Night is often considered to be Van Gogh 's pinnacle achievement. Jump up ^ Moyer, Edward ( 14 February 2012 ). `` Interactive canvas lets viewers stir Van Gogh 's ' Starry Night ' ''. CNET News. Retrieved 12 June 2015... one of the West 's most iconic paintings : Vincent van Gogh 's ' The Starry Night. ' Jump up ^ Kim, Hannah ( 27 May 2010 ). `` Vincent van Gogh 's The Starry Night, now pocket - sized ! ''. MoMA. Retrieved 12 June 2015. Instantly recognizable and an iconic image in our culture, Vincent van Gogh 's The Starry Night is a touchstone of modern art and one of the most beloved works... Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, pp. 701 -- 7 Jump up ^ Pickvance 1984, p. 159 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, pp. 741 -- 3 Jump up ^ Pickvance 1986, pp. 25 -- 6 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 746 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 754 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, pp. 592, 778 ^ Jump up to : Whitney 1986, p. 356 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, pp. 759 -- 61 ^ Jump up to : Boime 1984, p. 88 ^ Jump up to : Whitney 1986, p. 358 ^ Jump up to : Hulsker 1986, p. 394 Jump up ^ Pickvance 1986, p. 93 ^ Jump up to : Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 759 ^ Jump up to : Boime 1984, p. 89 Jump up ^ Hulsker 1986, p. 396 Jump up ^ Van Gogh Letters Project, no. 805 ^ Jump up to : Van Gogh Letters Project, no. 806 ^ Jump up to : Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 784 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 755 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 625n Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 674 Jump up ^ de Leeuw, Ronald ( ed. ) ( 1996 ). The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. London : Penguin Books. p. 469. ISBN 978 - 0 - 140 - 44674 - 6. CS1 maint : Extra text : authors list ( link ) ^ Jump up to : Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 762 Jump up ^ Van Gogh Letters Project, no. 816 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, pp. 626, 680 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 778 Jump up ^ Schapiro, Meyer ( 1950 ). Vincent van Gogh. New York : H.N. Abrams. p. 110. Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 650 ^ Jump up to : Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 649 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 611 Jump up ^ Soth 1986, p. 301 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 766 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 651 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 858n Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 767 ^ Jump up to : Schapiro, p. 100 Jump up ^ Schapiro, p. 33 Jump up ^ Schapiro, p. 108 Jump up ^ Pickvance 1986, p. 101 Jump up ^ Loevgren 1971, p. 172 Jump up ^ Loevgren 1971, pp. 172 -- 73 Jump up ^ Loevgren 1971, p. 181 Jump up ^ Loevgren 1971, p. 182 Jump up ^ Loevgren 1971, p. 183 Jump up ^ Loevgren 1971, p. 186 ^ Jump up to : Loevgren 1971, p. 184 Jump up ^ The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute : Cypresses in Starry Night Archived 10 January 2013 at Archive.is in the Lost Art digital collection. Retrieved 3 June 2012. Jump up ^ Richard Boudreaux : `` Ex-Soviet Officer Tried to Return Art Found in Cellar '', Los Angeles Times 20 March 1995, retrieved 3 June 2012. Jump up ^ Soth 1986, p. 308 Jump up ^ Soth 1986, p. 312 Jump up ^ Soth 1986, p. 307 Jump up ^ Soth 1986, p. 309 Jump up ^ Boime 1984, p. 95 ^ Jump up to : Boime 1984, p. 96 Jump up ^ Boime 1984, p. 92 Jump up ^ Rourke, Mary. `` Art historian viewed works from social, political standpoints ''. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 16 August 2014. Jump up ^ Whitney 1986, p. 352 Jump up ^ Whitney 1986, p. 351 ^ Jump up to : Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 771 Jump up ^ Schapiro, p. 34 Jump up ^ Pickvance 1984, p. 181 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 758 Jump up ^ Van Gogh Letters Project, no. 783 Jump up ^ Jirat - Wasiutynski, p. 657 ^ Jump up to : Pickvance 1986, p. 106 Jump up ^ Jirat - Wasiutynski, p. 667 Jump up ^ Soth 1986, p. 305 Jump up ^ Van Gogh Letters Project, no. 739 Jump up ^ Van Gogh Letters Project, no. 822 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 675 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, pp. 762 -- 763 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 749 ; emphasis in the original Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 763 Jump up ^ Naifeh & Smith 2011, p. 761 Jump up ^ `` The Provenance Research Project ''. Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 16 August 2014. Jump up ^ Yonghui Zhao, Roy S. Berns, Lawrence A. Taplin, James Coddington, An Investigation of Multispectral Imaging for the Mapping of Pigments in Paintings, in Proc. SPIE 6810, Computer Image Analysis in the Study of Art, 681007 ( 29 February 2008 ) Jump up ^ Van Gogh, The Starry Night, illustrated pigment analysis, ColourLex Letters ^ Jump up to : `` Letter 782 : To Theo van Gogh. Saint - Rémy - de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 18 June 1889 ''. Vincent van Gogh : The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. 1v : 2. At last I have a landscape with olive trees, and also a new study of a starry sky. Jump up ^ `` Letter 776 : To Theo van Gogh. Saint - Rémy - de-Provence, on or about Thursday, 23 May 1889 ''. Vincent van Gogh : The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. 1v : 2. Through the iron - barred window I can make out a square of wheat in an enclosure, a perspective in the manner of Van Goyen, above which in the morning I see the sun rise in its glory. Jump up ^ `` Letter 779 : To Theo van Gogh. Saint - Rémy - de-Provence, Sunday, 9 June 1889 ''. Vincent van Gogh : The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. 1v : 2... for a few days now I 've been going outside to work in the neighbourhood... One is the countryside that I glimpse from the window of my bedroom. In the foreground a field of wheat, ravaged and knocked to the ground after a storm. A boundary wall and beyond, grey foliage of a few olive trees, huts and hills. Finally, at the top of the painting a large white and grey cloud swamped by the azure. It 's a landscape of extreme simplicity -- in terms of coloration as well. Jump up ^ `` Letter 780 : To Willemien van Gogh. Saint - Rémy - de-Provence, Sunday, 16 June 1889 ''. Vincent van Gogh : The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. 1r : 1. Then yet another that depicts a field of yellowing wheat surrounded by brambles and green bushes. At the end of the field a little pink house with a tall and dark cypress tree that stands out against the distant purplish and bluish hills, and against a forget - me - not blue sky streaked with pink whose pure tones contrast with the already heavy, scorched ears, whose tones are as warm as the crust of a loaf of bread. Jump up ^ `` Letter 777 : To Theo van Gogh. Saint - Rémy - de-Provence, between about Friday, 31 May and about Thursday, 6 June 1889 ''. Vincent van Gogh : The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. 1v : 2. This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big. Sources Boime, Albert ( December 1984 ). `` Van Gogh 's Starry Night : A History of Matter and a Matter of History '' ( PDF ). Arts Magazine. De La Faille, Jacob Baart ( 1970 ). The works of Vincent van Gogh ( 3rd ed. ). Amsterdam : Meulenhoff. Ives, Colta ; Stein, Susan Alyson ; van Heugten, Sjraar ; Vellekoop, Marije ( 2005 ). Vincent Van Gogh : The Drawings. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978 - 1588391650. Hulsker, Jan ( 1986 ). The Complete Van Gogh : Paintings, Drawings, Sketches. New York, NY : Harrison House / Harry N. Abrams Distributed by Crown Publishers, Random House. ISBN 0 - 517 - 44867 - X. Jirat - Wasiutynski, Vojtech ( December 1993 ). `` Vincent van Gogh 's Paintings of Olive Trees and Cypresses from St. - Remy ''. Art Bulletin. 75 ( 4 ). JSTOR 3045988. Loevgren, Sven ( 1971 ). The Genesis of Modernism : Seurat, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and French Symbolism in the 1880s. Bloomington : Indiana University Press. ISBN 978 - 0253325600. Naifeh, Steven and Gregory White Smith ( 2011 ). Van Gogh : The Life. New York : Random House. ISBN 978 - 0 - 375 - 50748 - 9. Pickvance, Ronald ( 1984 ). Van Gogh in Arles. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0 - 87099 - 376 - 3. Pickvance, Ronald ( 1986 ). Van Gogh In Saint - Rémy and Auvers ( exhibition catalog, Metropolitan Museum of Art ). New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art, Abrams. ISBN 0 - 87099 - 477 - 8. Soth, Lauren ( June 1986 ). `` Van Gogh 's Agony ''. Art Bulletin. 68 ( 2 ) : 301. Whitney, Charles A. ( September 1986 ). `` The Skies of Vincent van Gogh ''. Art History. 9 ( 3 ). External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Starry Night. The Starry Night at the Museum of Modern Art The Starry Night at Memory Alpha ( a Star Trek wiki ) The Starry Night at Who is van Gogh Van Gogh, paintings and drawings : a special loan exhibition, a fully digitized exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on this painting ( see index ) Aerial photo of monastery marking Vincent 's bedroom Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, ColourLex Vincent van Gogh General Biography List of works Chronology The Letters of Vincent van Gogh Health Death Posthumous fame Cultural depictions Post-Impressionism Auberge Ravoux Café du Tambourin Family Theo van Gogh Wil van Gogh Johanna van Gogh - Bonger Andries Bonger Theo van Gogh ( film director ) Anton Mauve Johannes Stricker Friends Émile Bernard Eugène Boch Anna Boch Fernand Cormon Paul Gachet Paul Gauguin John Peter Russell Agostina Segatori Anthon van Rappard Groups of works Self portraits Portraits Early works Lost early works Sien Peasant Character Studies Cottages Van Gogh 's family in his art Montmartre Outskirts of Paris Still life paintings, Paris Le Moulin de la Galette Asnières Seine Wheat Fields Flowering Orchards Almond Blossoms Langlois Bridge at Arles Saintes - Maries Paintings of Children Décoration for the Yellow House The Roulin Family Hospital in Arles Butterflies Saint - Paul Asylum, Saint - Rémy The Enclosed Wheat Field at Saint - Rémy Trees and Undergrowth Copies by Vincent van Gogh Olive Trees Display at Les XX, 1890 Auvers size 30 canvases Auvers Double - squares and Squares Japonaiserie Sunflowers Still life paintings, Netherlands Meadows near Rijswijk and the Schenkweg Houses at Auvers Paintings Boy Cutting Grass with a Sickle Beach at Scheveningen in Stormy Weather The ' Laakmolen ' near The Hague Girl in White in the Woods Lying Cow A Girl in the Street, Two Coaches in the Background Cows in the Meadow Farmhouses Among Trees Bulb Fields Drawbridge in Nieuw - Amsterdam Landscape with Wheelbarrow Landscape with a Church at Twilight Landscape with Dunes Footbridge across a Ditch Marshy Landscape A Wind - Beaten Tree Farm with Stacks of Peat Farmhouses in Loosduinen near The Hague at Twilight Three Figures near a Canal with Windmill Two Rats Old Church Tower at Nuenen Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen Cart with Black Ox Cart with Red and White Ox Avenue of Poplars in Autumn Avenue of Poplars at Sunset Still Life with Straw Hat The Potato Eaters Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette Vase with Red Poppies Poppy Flowers Wheat Field with a Lark View of Paris from Vincent 's Room in the Rue Lepic Portrait of Père Tanguy A Woman Walking in a Garden Imperial Fritillaries in a Copper Vase Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin Landscape with Snow La Mousmé The Zouave The Night Café The Yellow House Van Gogh 's Chair Café Terrace at Night Starry Night Over the Rhône Portrait of the Artist 's Mother Bedroom in Arles A Lane in the Public Garden at Arles Falling Autumn Leaves L'Arlésienne The Red Vineyard Memory of the Garden at Etten ( Ladies of Arles ) Les Arènes Interior of a Restaurant in Arles A Lane near Arles View of Arles, Flowering Orchards Arles : View from the Wheat Fields Sunset at Montmajour Crab on its Back Two Crabs La Berceuse Irises The Starry Night Self - portrait ( 1889 ) Self - portrait without beard Self - Portrait with Bandaged Ear A Meadow in the Mountains : Le Mas de Saint - Paul Enclosed Field with Peasant Wheat Field with Cypresses Green Wheat Field with Cypress Ivy Farmhouse in Provence Road with Cypress and Star At Eternity 's Gate Thatched Cottages and Houses Portrait of Dr. Gachet Doctor Gachet 's Garden in Auvers Houses at Auvers White House at Night Landscape with a Carriage and a Train Girl in White The Church at Auvers Daubigny 's Garden Farms near Auvers The Town Hall at Auvers Blossoming Chestnut Branches Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat View of the Asylum and Chapel of Saint - Rémy Still Life : Vase with Pink Roses Wheatfield with Crows Tree Roots Other works Drawings, water - colours and prints 87 Hackford Road Marsh with Water Lilies Church Pew with Worshippers Portrait of a Man in a Top Hat Sorrow Woman on Her Deathbed Torso of Venus and a Landscape Old Vineyard with Peasant Woman Museums Van Gogh Museum Maison Van Gogh Public collections Kröller - Müller Museum Musée d'Orsay National Gallery ( London ) Portrayals Portrait of Vincent van Gogh ( 1887 ) The Painter of Sunflowers ( 1888 painting ) Lust for Life ( 1934 novel 1956 film ) Van Gogh ( 1948 film ) Van Gogh ( 1956 opera ) `` Vincent '' ( 1971 song ) Vincent ( 1987 film ) Vincent & Theo ( 1990 film ) Vincent and Me ( 1990 film ) Dreams ( 1990 film ) Vincent ( 1990 opera ) Van Gogh ( 1991 film ) Vincent in Brixton ( 2003 play ) `` Vincent and the Doctor '' ( 2010 TV episode ) Loving Vincent ( 2017 film ) At Eternity 's Gate ( 2018 film ) Cataloguers Jacob Baart de la Faille ( 1928 and 1970 ; `` F '' ) Jan Hulsker ( 1978, revised 1989 ; `` JH '' ) Modernism Milestones Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe ( 1862 - 63 ) Olympia ( 1863 ) A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte ( 1886 ) Mont Sainte - Victoir ( 1887 ) The Starry Night ( 1889 ) Ubu Roi ( 1896 ) Verklärte Nacht ( 1899 ) Le bonheur de vivre ( 1905 - 1906 ) Les Demoiselles d'Avignon ( 1907 ) The Dance ( 1909 - 10 ) The Firebird ( 1910 ) Afternoon of a Faun ( 1912 ) Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 ( 1912 ) The Rite of Spring ( 1913 ) In Search of Lost Time ( 1913 -- 1927 ) The Metamorphosis ( 1915 ) Black Square ( 1915 ) Fountain ( 1917 ) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ( 1920 ) Six Characters in Search of an Author ( 1921 ) Ulysses ( 1922 ) The Waste Land ( 1922 ) The Magic Mountain ( 1924 ) Battleship Potemkin ( 1925 ) The Sun Also Rises ( 1926 ) The Threepenny Opera ( 1928 ) The Sound and the Fury ( 1929 ) Un Chien Andalou ( 1929 ) Villa Savoye ( 1931 ) The Blue Lotus ( 1936 ) Fallingwater ( 1936 ) Waiting for Godot ( 1953 ) Literature Guillaume Apollinaire Djuna Barnes Tadeusz Borowski André Breton Mikhail Bulgakov Anton Chekhov Joseph Conrad Alfred Döblin E.M. Forster William Faulkner Gustave Flaubert Ford Madox Ford André Gide Knut Hamsun Jaroslav Hašek Ernest Hemingway Hermann Hesse James Joyce Franz Kafka Arthur Koestler D.H. Lawrence Wyndham Lewis Thomas Mann Katherine Mansfield Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Guy de Maupassant Robert Musil Katherine Anne Porter Marcel Proust Gertrude Stein Italo Svevo Virginia Woolf Poetry Anna Akhmatova Richard Aldington W.H. Auden Charles Baudelaire Luca Caragiale Constantine P. Cavafy Blaise Cendrars Hart Crane H.D. Robert Desnos T.S. Eliot Paul Éluard Odysseas Elytis F.S. Flint Stefan George Max Jacob Federico García Lorca Amy Lowell Robert Lowell Mina Loy Stéphane Mallarmé Marianne Moore Wilfred Owen Octavio Paz Fernando Pessoa Ezra Pound Lionel Richard Rainer Maria Rilke Arthur Rimbaud Giorgos Seferis Wallace Stevens Dylan Thomas Tristan Tzara Paul Valéry William Carlos Williams W.B. Yeats Visual art Josef Albers Jean Arp Balthus George Bellows Umberto Boccioni Pierre Bonnard Georges Braque Constantin Brâncuși Alexander Calder Mary Cassatt Paul Cézanne Marc Chagall Giorgio de Chirico Camille Claudel Joseph Cornell Joseph Csaky Salvador Dalí Edgar Degas Raoul Dufy Willem de Kooning Robert Delaunay Charles Demuth Otto Dix Theo van Doesburg Marcel Duchamp James Ensor Max Ernst Jacob Epstein Paul Gauguin Alberto Giacometti Vincent van Gogh Natalia Goncharova Julio González Juan Gris George Grosz Raoul Hausmann Jacques Hérold Hannah Höch Edward Hopper Frida Kahlo Wassily Kandinsky Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Paul Klee Oskar Kokoschka Pyotr Konchalovsky André Lhote Fernand Léger Franz Marc Albert Marque Jean Marchand René Magritte Kazimir Malevich Édouard Manet Henri Matisse Colin McCahon Jean Metzinger Joan Miró Amedeo Modigliani Piet Mondrian Claude Monet Henry Moore Edvard Munch Emil Nolde Georgia O'Keeffe Méret Oppenheim Francis Picabia Pablo Picasso Camille Pissarro Man Ray Odilon Redon Pierre - Auguste Renoir Auguste Rodin Henri Rousseau Egon Schiele Georges Seurat Paul Signac Alfred Sisley Edward Steichen Alfred Stieglitz Henri de Toulouse - Lautrec Édouard Vuillard Grant Wood Music George Antheil Milton Babbitt Jean Barraqué Béla Bartók Alban Berg Luciano Berio Nadia Boulanger Pierre Boulez John Cage Elliott Carter Aaron Copland Henry Cowell Henri Dutilleux Morton Feldman Henryk Górecki Josef Matthias Hauer Paul Hindemith Arthur Honegger Charles Ives Leoš Janáček György Ligeti Witold Lutosławski Olivier Messiaen Luigi Nono Harry Partch Krzysztof Penderecki Sergei Prokofiev Luigi Russolo Erik Satie Pierre Schaeffer Arnold Schoenberg Dmitri Shostakovich Richard Strauss Igor Stravinsky Karol Szymanowski Edgard Varèse Anton Webern Kurt Weill Iannis Xenakis Theatre Edward Albee Maxwell Anderson Jean Anouilh Antonin Artaud Samuel Beckett Bertolt Brecht Anton Chekhov Friedrich Dürrenmatt Jean Genet Maxim Gorky Walter Hasenclever Henrik Ibsen William Inge Eugène Ionesco Alfred Jarry Georg Kaiser Maurice Maeterlinck Vladimir Mayakovsky Arthur Miller Seán O'Casey Eugene O'Neill John Osborne Luigi Pirandello Erwin Piscator George Bernard Shaw August Strindberg John Millington Synge Ernst Toller Frank Wedekind Thornton Wilder Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Film Ingmar Bergman Anton Giulio Bragaglia Luis Buñuel Marcel Carné Charlie Chaplin René Clair Jean Cocteau Maya Deren Alexander Dovzhenko Carl Theodor Dreyer Viking Eggeling Sergei Eisenstein Jean Epstein Robert J. 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Murnau Georg Wilhelm Pabst Vsevolod Pudovkin Jean Renoir Walter Ruttmann Victor Sjöström Josef von Sternberg Dziga Vertov Jean Vigo Robert Wiene Dance George Balanchine Merce Cunningham Clotilde von Derp Sergei Diaghilev Isadora Duncan Michel Fokine Loie Fuller Martha Graham Hanya Holm Doris Humphrey Léonide Massine Vaslav Nijinsky Alwin Nikolais Alexander Sakharoff Ted Shawn Anna Sokolow Ruth St. Denis Helen Tamiris Charles Weidman Mary Wigman Architecture Alvar Aalto Marcel Breuer Gordon Bunshaft Antoni Gaudí Walter Gropius Hector Guimard Raymond Hood Victor Horta Friedensreich Hundertwasser Philip Johnson Louis Kahn Le Corbusier Adolf Loos Konstantin Melnikov Erich Mendelsohn Pier Luigi Nervi Richard Neutra Oscar Niemeyer Hans Poelzig Antonin Raymond Gerrit Rietveld Eero Saarinen Rudolf Steiner Edward Durell Stone Louis Sullivan Vladimir Tatlin Paul Troost Jørn Utzon Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Frank Lloyd Wright Related articles American modernism Armory Show Art Deco Art Nouveau Ashcan School Avant - garde Ballets Russes Bauhaus Buddhist modernism Constructivism Cubism Dada Degenerate art De Stijl Der Blaue Reiter Die Brücke Ecomodernism Expressionism Expressionist music Fauvism Fourth dimension in art Fourth dimension in literature Futurism Hanshinkan Modernism High modernism Imagism Impressionism International Style Late modernism Late modernity Lettrism List of art movements List of avant - garde artists List of modernist poets Lyrical abstraction Minimalism Modern art Modernity Neo-Dada Neo-primitivism New Objectivity Orphism Post-Impressionism Postminimalism Postmodernism Reactionary modernism Metamodernism Remodernism Romanticism Second Viennese School Structural film Surrealism Symbolism Synchromism Tonalism Warsaw Autumn BNF : cb12152516w ( data ) GND : 4209985 - 7 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Starry_Night&oldid=854044988 '' Categories : 1889 paintings Paintings by Vincent van Gogh Paintings of the Museum of Modern Art ( New York ) Vincent van Gogh paintings of Saint - Rémy Churches in art Moon in art Hidden categories : CS1 maint : Extra text : authors list Webarchive template archiveis links Use dmy dates from November 2013 All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from July 2015 All Wikipedia articles needing clarification Wikipedia articles needing clarification from August 2017 Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Talk Contents About Wikipedia Afrikaans Asturianu Azərbaycanca Башҡортса Беларуская Беларуская ( тарашкевіца ) ‎ Български Bosanski Brezhoneg Català Čeština Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français 한국어 Հայերեն Hrvatski Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית ქართული Latina Latviešu Lietuvių Македонски മലയാളം Bahasa Melayu Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk ਪੰਜਾਬੀ Polski Português Română Русский Simple English Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska தமிழ் ไทย Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt Winaray 粵語 中文 47 more Edit links This page was last edited on 8 August 2018, at 15 : 53 ( UTC ). 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Question: what type of painting is the starry night
Answer: an oil on canvas