Question: Who did Van Gogh write in 1888 expressing his desire to paint the night sky?
About the article "The Starry Night", section "Genesis".

Candidate passages:
In a letter written to Émile Bernard in April 1888, Van Gogh expressed his desire to paint the night sky, and questioned whether he could achieve his intention by painting from nature as the Impressionists did:In September 1888, before his December breakdown that resulted in his hospitalisation in Arles, he painted "Starry Night Over the Rhone".
Working by night under a gas lamp, Van Gogh painted this work directly from nature.
"It does me good to do what's difficult, "Van Gogh wrote, "That doesn’t stop me having a tremendous need for, shall I say the word—for religion—so I go outside at night to paint the stars.
"In May 1889, Van Gogh decided to enter the asylum at Saint-Rémy, where he stayed for the next year.
His time there was very productive, although interrupted by incapacitating nervous attacks.
Inspired by the landscape surrounding the asylum, he painted "Starry Night" in June 1889.
Unlike the earlier "Starry Night Over the Rhone", the new night scene was painted in daylight, from memory.
In mid-September 1889, following a heavy crisis which lasted from mid-July to the last days of August, he thought to include "Starry Night" in the next batch of works to be sent to his brother, Theo, in Paris.
In order to reduce the shipping costs, he withheld three of the studies, including "Starry Night".
These three went to Paris with the shipment that followed.
When Theo did not immediately report its arrival, Vincent inquired again and finally received Theo's commentary on his recent work.
After finishing "Café Terrace at Night", Van Gogh wrote a letter to his sister expressing his enthusiasm:He continues, in this same letter, This excerpt forms the basis of the Van Gogh Museum's curators' opinion that the painting is a depiction ""of drinkers in the harsh, bright lights of their illuminated facades"" from Maupassant's novel "Bel Ami", however, they also note that Maupassant makes no mention of a 'starry sky.'
In 1981, Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov argued that since it “displays not only a night scene but also a funnel-like perspective and dominant blue-yellow tonality” it was at least partially inspired by Louis Anquetin's "Avenue de Clichy: 5 o'clock in the evening.
"An academic paper presented at IAFOR's 2013 European Conference on Arts & Humanities, however, advanced the theory that van Gogh intended the painting to be a uniquely innovated "Last Supper".
The paper was subsequently published by The Art Histories Society in the January, 2014 "Art History Supplement".
Briefly, the paper examines the myriad artistic influences van Gogh was parsing the summer of 1888: his lifelong devotion to and imitation of Jesus Christ; synthesizing "Japonism" and "Cloisonnism" with his own "plein air" techniques; colorizing Jean-François Millet's pious genre scenes with Eugène Delacroix's luminous palette (see Boats du Rhône); "search-for-sacred-realism" correspondence with his artist friend Émile Bernard; Thomas Carlyle and Boccaccio's examples of dressing old ideas in new clothes; an Émile Burnouf article claiming Buddhist missionaries sowed the seeds Essenes later reaped as Christianity; failed attempts creating his own Christ in the Garden of Olives; two proximal "Last Supper" studies ("Interior of a Restaurant in Arles" and "Interior of the Restaurant Carrel in Arles") featuring straw-bottomed chairs he'd just purchased by the dozen (hoping to start a commune of twelve "artist-apostles" at his Yellow House); culminating with his composition of twelve diners drenched in a yellow halo surrounding a Rembrandtesque server framed by a crucifix at the vanishing point of the picture; it's concluded his original starry night is a Symbolist's "Last Supper".
Although van Gogh never explicitly mentioned his intent in any existing letter, he did write his brother Theo two weeks later, "That doesn't stop me having a terrible need for - dare I say the word - for religion.
So I go outside at night to paint the stars and I always dream a painting like that with a group of living figures of the pals."
"Vase with Zinnias and Geraniums" (F241) reflects the influence of Adolphe Monticelli (1824–1886) in its vivid color and impasto paint.
Van Gogh admired, and later collected, Monticelli's work.
Van Gogh had been introduced by his brother Theo to Monticelli's still life work with flowers in Paris.
He admired Monticelli's use of color as an expansion of Delacroix's theories of color and contrast.
Secondly he admired the effect Monticelli created by heavy application of paint called "impasto".
It was partially Monticelli, from Marseilles, who inspired Van Gogh's southerly move to Provence in 1888.
He felt such kinship for the man, and desire to emulate his style, that he wrote in a letter to his sister Wil that he felt as if he were "Monticelli's son or his brother."
The first owner in the provenance of this painting is "C.M.
van Gogh Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands", which was owned by Van Gogh's uncle and an art dealer, Cornelius Marinus van Gogh (1824–1908).
"Bowl with Zinnias and Other Flowers" (F251), painted within days of "Vase with Zinnias and Geraniums" (F241), is evidence of Van Gogh's transition to a lighter color palette.
Picking up elements of Impressionism Van Gogh painted with a more vigorous brushstroke, with thick application of paint, called "impasto" which created a three-dimensional relief.< 
In a jocular passage of a letter Van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, the artist said Ginoux had taken so much of his money that he'd told the cafe owner it was time to take his revenge by painting the place.
In August 1888 the artist told his brother in a letter:In the first days of September 1888, Van Gogh sat up for three consecutive nights to paint the picture, sleeping during the day.
Little later, he sent the water-colour, copying the composition and again simplyfing the colour scheme on order to meet the simplicity of Japanese woodblock prints.
Van Gogh's "Cafe Terrace at Night", showing outdoor tables, a street scene and the night sky, was painted in Arles at about the same time.
It depicts a different cafe, a larger establishment on the Place du Forum. 
Portrait of Artist's Mother is a painting Vincent van Gogh made in 1888 of his mother, Anna Carbentus van Gogh from a black-and-white photograph.
In September 1888 Van Gogh - answering to a letter of his sister Wil who had told him of a recent photograph of their mother - asked for a print.
About a week later he received it, but - ""troubled by the black"" - sat down to paint a copy based on this likeness: Van Gogh's initial introduction to art was through his mother, an amateur artist.
After years of strained relationship with family members, Van Gogh excitedly shared some of his works his mother would cherish most, those of flowers and natural settings.
In this painting of his mother, Van Gogh captures her dignified, proud nature.
Van Gogh made the painting, " Memory of the Garden at Etten", to depict an older woman who he envisioned as his mother and a younger woman in a plaid shawl to represent his sister Wil and the lovely gardens of the Netherlands.
In a letter to his sister Wil Van Gogh said he had "an impression of you like those in Dicken's novels."