Vang Gogh's A Starry Night
...eems as it was painted with a great amount of emotion and feeling toward the subject. One reason for this was that Van Gogh painted this picture inside, primarily from memory, not outside like many of his other works. This is a possible explanation of this emotional impact that seems to be involved in this painting rather than some of his other paintings of the same time. Van Gogh’s style is very dissimilar to the impressionist painters of the same time. Some aspects of impressionism that Van Gogh depicted from include the impressionist idea that art was greatest when it stood on its own with no added symbolism or meaning; however, Van Gogh’s paintings were extremely symbolic and most had a deeper emotional meaning to him than what is perceived at a first glance. Also, impressionist art attempted to be a direct reflection of nature, as is in the case of Starry Night; Van Gogh exploited nature to depict his emotional states at the time the painting was created. Lastly, impressionists attempted to depict the world around them realistically; however, Van Gogh used his art as a form of communication, or as an expression of his emotion, imagination, or intellect. Because of these main differences with most impressionist painters, Van Gogh is usually classified as the first expressionist painter, which means he used his art to convey his feelings, thoughts, and emotions. Van Gogh was a master of the use of color, line, texture, distortion, and exaggeration and Starry Night is an excellent example of this mastery. Most of the aspects of the painting give a feeling of horizontal movement, as if there is a gentle breeze. These include the swirling wind, and the giant willow tree swaying in the foreground. This horizontal movement is exaggerated by a couple vertical aspects in the painting. These include the willow again, which stands tall and predominant in the left side of the piece, and also, the small church steeple in the small village in the background. These features accentuate the horizontal movement, which seems to be a calming aspect of the painting. Van Gogh’s distinct use of lines, which is apparent in many of his works, is particularly apparent in Starry Night. Horizontal lines swirling through the wind and the sky also help to portray a sort of horizontal movement in the picture. Van Gogh also uses light and color very well in Starry Night. The bright moon and stars are greatly emphasized in this painting; they offset the dark blue sky in the painting and seem to provide light to the quaint little village. There have been many speculations as to Van Gogh’s reasons for portraying the stars as he did...