Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh is a cityscape oil painting from the summer of 1889, when this famous post-impressionist artist was at his boldest

The painting by Vincent Van Gogh is of the view he experienced from his sanatorium room window at night. In order to achieve best results he would normally paint during the day when light was at it's brightest, allowing him greatest possible accuracy with his chosen colour scheme. As such The Starry Night had to be painted entirely from memory. The sanatorium was in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, which is deep into Southern France and it was in this part of the country that Vincent had discovered vivid colours, having initially been much darker in his work, as seen with the likes of Potato Eaters which is generally regarded as his first notable work.

Irises was another painting to come around the same time as Starry Night, and this also is emblazoned with bright colour throughout. This period of the artist's work is the most popular among mainstream art fans and marks the pinnacle for his career, with regards the fame and academic respect which was to occur after his death. One interesting theory regarding this painting was the link to Eugene Delacroix, made by art historian Lauren Soth. She believed that this artwork captures influences of the French painter on Van Gogh and that his selection of colours here is an approximate match to those of Delacroix's, early in his own career. Try the video below to have a go at creating this stunning oil painting at home! This skillful artist creates a reproduction of the original, step-by-step in this impressive and enthralling YouTube video.

Wikipedia contains extra information on this painting, as well as on the life of it's creator, more generally. All of the major highlights of Van Gogh's career are detailed through a number of articles available in this extensive website which remains one of the first ports of call for researchers on almost any mainstream subject. Ever since 1941 The Starry Night has been in the stored in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, United States. It is no surprise to say that this painting is among the key attractions of this gallery because of it's popularity and critical achievement, despite the high level of other quality paintings that exist within MoMA. Starry Night is oil on canvas, as with the vast majority of Van Gogh's works and stands at an impressive 73.7 cm × 92.1 cm (29 in × 36¼ in) in total.

A lesser known fact is that Vincent produced a Reed pen drawing version of it afterwards, following exactly the same layout with the only differences being due to the different media used, giving a truly alternative style with the bright colours removed and a different feel completely inserted instead. Van Gogh surprisingly felt that Starry Night did not work as a complete painting as much as other works in his career recently had, and so he explained his dis-satisfaction with it through letters to his brother Theo Van Gogh, whilst staying in Saint-Remy. Whilst brilliantly skilled, Vincent was extremely critical of his own work, and others will understand that when seeing such an outstanding work with their own eyes. Vincent felt that the deliberate nature of the lines made it look to mucho like a picture, even with the extreme swishes which he used to exaggerate the painting itself. He always wanted to get across his own unique mind and hadn't achieved that in Starry Night, or as he thought.

This website offers prints of this famous painting by Vincent Van Gogh. Just click on the image to see all the different prints available including framed, unframed, giclee prints and tapestries. You can also read more about Starry Night Van Gogh below. It is our desire to help people to find a trusted store to buy framed or unframed Starry Night prints online as well as learn more about the Vincent Van Gogh himself, and the history around each individual painting.

Van Gogh's Starry Night has become the inspiration for all of the following, helping to spread it's success and legacy even further:

• French composer Henri Dutilleux produced his orchestral work Timbres, Espace, Mouvement
• American poet Anne Sexton's poem titled The Starry Night
• Canadian composer Giancarlo Scalia's piano based composition Starry Night
• Don McLean's song "Vincent", which uses the opening words "Starry Starry Night"
• Jack's Mannequin and Something Corporate singer Andrew McMahon went to the lengths of getting a tattoo of the painting on his arm