畫 評 / The Starry Nightby Vincent van Gogh

Midterm Critique. Orz

Critique – The Starry Night    by Vincent van Gogh

 

This art work by Vincent van Gogh was painted with oil on a 29x36 ¼ squared-inch canvas. The subject is a scenery of a night in a small, quiet village with objects of bright yellow moons and white stars, blue houses, church, mountains, trees, curvy wind in the sky, and a huge flam-like cypress on the left side. In this piece the artist uses mostly curved lines which are kind of orbiting the stars and the moon to bring them out and make a sense of the shining light; the lines are also used to form the swirling blaze which is a very important role to move the viewer’s eyes around. There are lots of smooth organic shapes such as the mountains in the back, the trees, angulated organic shapes such as the buildings, and the light of stars may be considered as some geometric circles. The contrast made by value can easily be seen on the stars and the moon which has a real light value compare to the village and the cypress which are very dark. The contrast is also made by the color which the white stars, the yellow moon and the dark blue-and-purple sky are painted in complementary colors. Size in this piece brings the space out. The huge cypress and the small houses created a sense of depth. The most featured in this piece is the texture created by the oil in the background which lead the viewer’s eyes going around with it. Van Gogh used the color to make this piece asymmetrical balanced, because brown and yellow are both very strong colors and the their heaviness balanced each other out.

This piece, in size wise, has the emphasis of the cypress which has the hugest size and also the darkness helps to bring it out, However, in color wise, the moon is the one being emphasized because it has the brightest and the most complement color – warm yellow, with the scenery which is mostly cold dark blue. The texture in this piece which is the line created by the oil, it creates a movement of the blowing wind from left to the center swirls, and go to the pattern which is also created by the oil on the mountain and the trees; then it moves down to the small village, rises up into the sky again with the flame like  cypress, and go back to where it started. Thus the texture and the cypress plays a great role in making this art work unity; the moving sky and the silent, calm village is connected by the cypress which has a perpendicular lines and bring the ground up into the sky.

In this piece I think van Gogh is trying to express two things. One would be the energy and power that the nature has, compare to the vivid, lively sky which symbolized the motional energy that nature has to the silent, quiet town that people created and built, we can barely find that van Gogh was tried to tell us the brilliance of nature. In the other hand, I also thinks that because of van Gogh’s loneliness life, this is an art work that he tried to express himself. The curvy lines reflected his insane soul, his world was distorted and deviant. The cypress is kind of a sign for van Gogh want to free his soul into the warm shining sky, and away from this cold dark world. The moon that is far away  from the cypress which also has a warmest color in this whole painting is the symbol of love that van Gogh desired.

I think this piece is quite a successful one because it uses a very good contrast of complementary colors, I also love its sense of space that the cypress is so close to the viewer which is kind of bring me into the work. Over all the texture is the greatest part of this whole thing, it creates movement, unity, and the artist’s strong style. I personally like this art not only because of the successful or great skills that are used here, but al so the emotion that van Gogh tried to bring out is very moving to me. The magical and fantastical swirl and the crazy cypress takes me in to the lonely world that Vincent van Gogh created.

 

 

Source: The Museum of Modern Art  Web site

http://www.moma.org/collection/search.php

 

Biography – Vincent van Gogh

 

He was born in in 1853 as a son of a clergyman. Vincent later in his life worked in for a firm of art dealers in London and Paris.

He was a clergyman and did an illegal missionary which made him lose his job again. Vincent then decided to become a real artist but he got droped-out from school. He then went to Paris and met Gauguin, they even later move to Southern France to do their works together. Because of van Gogh’s nervousness, Gauguin could not stand and leave. Van Gogh then became totally insane and even chopped his ear off. He is sent to the psychiatric hospital and he suicide in 1890. He was not successful and very poor and needed his younger brother Theo to support him. He is considered Impressionism and the forerunner of Fauvism. His Goal to achieve thorough his work is to express his insane soul (the quantity of his art work that is created during living in the psychiatric hospital is huge.) and protest to the collapsing society quietly.

 

Source : Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org

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