Vincent van Gogh - “The Starry Night” 1889

This painting is called the Starry night, it shows an array of lights and shadows all communicated through a spectrum of colors. It shows the view from the east-facing window of Van Gogh’s asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an imaginary village. This painting was painted after Van Gogh mutilated his own left ear, then admitted himself as mentally unstable into the asylum. Taking in the piece the different shades of blues Van Gogh uses makes me feel a sense of peace, with a tinge of sadness. The dark dark black trees that are blocked in at the front of the painting seem so void-like deprived of all light. The stars in the sky feels like a sense of hope, maybe this was Van Gogh’s way of depicting hope as he descends into insanity. The beautiful view seems like Van Gogh was living in a box where his only light, his only source of beauty was the one window he was given as he rotted in the Asylum. A makeshift town he had imagined sits in the background of the painting; the complementary colors of blue and yellow detail each house with warmness. A comfortable sense of home, the feeling only being able to be observed from the confinement of the cell-like room of the Asylum. I think this piece truly shows the pain of someone who is confined in such a desolated depressing mind and physical space, where their only hope is brought through the window of imagination, beauty, love, homelyness, and comfort. If you could draw one place that brings you comfort and love, a place you could retreat to at a time of struggle, what would that place be?

Vincent van Gogh - “The Starry Night” 1889 (73.7 cm × 92.1 cm (29.01 in × 36.26 in)