Talk:The Starry Night

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[edit] Homework

im doin my home work on it.......wat is the meanin of tha painting????

i no!! isn't there a description that say's sumat lyk "... eleven

amazingly enlarged stars... entwined... cosmic happening" or something ??? if any1 knows this description please tell us!!!! i need to know!!!!!

wow! i found it! if ani1 wants to know the description of starry night,

go to this website (it's ace if ur doing homework!): [[1]] it starts off; "A highly dramatic cosmic event is taking place..." if ani1 reckonnises this, this website is the one u need! xxx

The meaning of this painting is "Life and Death, the town and the heavens- collide, and they are connected by both the church spire and the swaying cypress, a tree traditionally used to mark graves in southern France and Italy. Van Gogh himself writes to this brother "My paintings are almost a cry of anguish". The meaning is "Life and Death". Reference is "A World of Art" by Sayre 2007. This painting was created a year before the artist committed suicide. He committed suicide on July 27, 1890.

[edit] Name

Several sources suggests that The Starry Night is the common name in english. I'll move the page soon. [2] [3] ✏ Sverdrup 15:26, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You're correct. One of your references is the museum in which the painting is kept, which I think is sufficiently authoritative. I've gone ahead and moved the article and corrected the name. —Rory ☺ 16:29, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect reference to astronomical investigation

I've removed the following:

It was determined 114 years after the painting had been made, in 2003, by the Southwest Texas State University astronomers Russell Doescher and Donald Olson, along with Olson's wife, Marilyn by using astronomical simulation software, that the painting captures the moment in time of 9:08 p.m. on July 13th., 1889 [4]. The composition correlates with the view from the window in his room — the cyprus trees have been confirmed to have existed during the time of his stay.

If you follow the link, it becomes apparent that this is about a different painting, Moonrise (also, anyone could figure out that there's no way you're going to see stars at 21:08 in July). I'll try and see if I can find a better date. Junes 09:41, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I guess this is oil on canvas. What are the dimensions of the painting? I really like this picture, perhaps I'll do a copy of it sometime. I guess he used prussian and cobalt blue, umber and white and bits of some warm yellow colour and red. --Publunch 15:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, I found the dimensions and stuff with a quick google search. Can't guarantee that the source was authoritative though.

[edit] Last painting?

I heard that this was his last and final work before he killed himself..gun shot to the heart. Stevenwagner 05:40, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not his last painting. At least that's what our article Vincent van Gogh says. Junes 20:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aurora Borealis?

It looks to me like he was trying to describe, in his medium, the northern lights, which may not have been a common sight in those latitudes at that time. But it certainly looks like the northern lights. I also know it is hard enough to capture it on film or in digital media, as it is always changing, at least in an active storm. Normally it is just another hue in the night sky, slowly shifting as are the stars, but when they are active, what you see is mind-blowing! When you try to capture them, they get away from you, using paint, film, digitization, or paint. You could hope to capture them with video or motion picture technology, but they are really too dim for all of that, and their magnificance is lost. When you have a long exposure film, the stars move. When you have a long exposure light-sensitive CCD, it looks out of focus, regardless of the stability of the stars or terrestrial objects. It is only when the human mind is involved, which can interpret and cast new light, or shadow, on such phenomena, through emotional interpretation, that a strikingly accurate and even recognizable portrayal can be found. He did with his mind and artistic medium, what cannot be done with all of our technological advances today! This is the Aurora Borealis!

I doubt it. See [5], about Van Gogh: Starry Night, by Albert Boime - ... UCLA's Griffin Observatory determined that the painting represented the predawn sky of June 19, 1889 (Van Gogh's letters pinpoint the time and date) .... -- JackofOz (talk) 00:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting comparison

Comparison of Don McLean's music and lyrics, with Anne Sexton's poetry, read by Ms. Sexton herself, along with visuals from several sources for comparison. I'm not sure how to add an external links section, not even sure I've added a new topic here correctly, I've just followed how others seem to have done it. Is this how an external links section would be entered on the subject page?

[edit] External links

[edit] Why did he create this painting?

It said he died excatly 13 months before he died, but it didnt say anything about why he painted this painting, WikiPedia should be more specific.

So should you. :-)

[edit] Quote

Removed from the text:

Often associated with this painting are Van Gogh's words, "Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star."

The quote is from a letter written in Arles, not in Saint-Rémy - and this implies to handle this association with caution. And at all, where is often? Please supply sources for this statement! --RPD 20:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Common places removed from main page

  • Created by van Gogh while he was in the asylum at Saint Rémy de Provence in June 1889, the painting portrays a swirling skyscape filled with yellow glowing stars above a small town and rolling hills. It was painted by Van Gogh just 13 months before his suicide. The large dark formation in the foreground left of center has been described as the tip of a tree, although art historians have presented various other interpretations. Its purpose seems to be to direct the eye towards the sky. In addition, it adds depth to the painting. A church steeple in the town also points towards the sky, emphasising the sense of looking up. This artwork is considered one of the great masterpieces of its time, as it achieves both beautiful and agitated effects simultaneously.

This is no portrait, not even a landscape, but a painting with its own rules and rights. - What means it has been described, by what art historians? Supply sources! And a tower tends to point to the sky. I don't want to comment the rest. --RPD 23:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pairing with Wheatfield with Cypresses

From the main page:

  • For the exhibition at the Société des Artistes Indépendants Van Gogh suggested pairing The Starry Night with another painting, thought[1] to be Wheatfield with Cypresses, which depicts the same hills in the background. He wrote to Theo, who selected the works to be included in the exhibition:[2]
“ As for the exhibition of the Independents, it's all one to me, just act as if I weren't there. So as not to be indifferent, and not to exhibit anything too mad, perhaps the “Starry Night” and the landscape with yellow verdure, which was in the walnut frame. Since these are two with contrasting colours, it might give somebody else the idea of doing those night effects better than I have. ”
  • Lubin[1] suggests that the imaginary city painted in The Starry Night can be thought of in terms of the "eternal city" in Van Gogh's sermon, the goal of the pilgrim: "Hopeful as he looks up to the eternal city far away, resplendent in the evening glow"[3]
  • In the end neither of these paintings were included in the exhibition.

Remarks:

    • Reference is to the Indépendants 1889, to Starry Night over the Rhone and to a view from the public garden, most ptobably the version now in the Phillips Collection, Washington (cf. image at The Décoration for the Yellow House
    • The village is really not imaginary, but close to reality: see subject.
    • Lubin's psychoanalytical approach often does no longer meet the present state of evaluation of Van Gogh's letters.

--RPD 18:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


Thanks ... I'll remove the section from the main article. Stumps 20:10, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] expand this page?

It is a talk page considered to be expanded - so I remove the expand-tag here, and insert it on the main page. --RPD 00:04, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Whirlpool Galaxy

"The Starry Night has striking similarities to Whirlpool Galaxy". I get the feeling this has just been added to expand the article because i don't see any similarities whatsoever, and thus i think it should be removed from the article. Please add your thoughts on this. OGOL 19:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] is this an appropriate external link ?

http://robbiedingo.blip.tv/file/304481/

Signpostmarv (talk) 14:19, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Foreground shape

I've reverted several consecutive unsourced mentions (all coming from anonymous addresses at the same university, and ignoring the request for a reference) of the foreground shape as being that of a castle. The traditional reading is that this is a cypress tree, which is how the Museum of Modern Art describes it on its web site. There are likely other interpretations as well, but if you are going to make a definitive statement that 'critics' believe it is a building, please provide a reliable source. Otherwise, it's WP:OR. JNW (talk) 05:06, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment on the following text in the article:

This is no photography of an actual site, but a free compilation of local topics to be seen in the neighborhood of the asylum in Saint-Rémy and compiled by an artist who had studied the various elements of his composition in detail. The center part shows the village of Saint-Rémy, in a view from the asylum towards north. The Alpilles far to the right fit to this view, but there is little rapport of the actual scene with the intermediary hills which seem to be derived from a different part of the surroundings, south of the asylum. The cypress tree to the left was added into the composition.[6] Of note, is the fact van Gogh had already, during his time in Arles, repositioned Ursa Major from the north to the south in his painting Starry Night Over the Rhone.

Comment: The overall picture may be a montage of various parts of the surrounding area, however the depiction of the sky is accurate. He could see exactly that skyscape through his window in the asylum, in the pre-dawn of 19 June 1889. Albert Boime and Edwin Krupp used the Zeiss Planetary Projector at Griffin Park Observatory at UCLA to recreate the moment van Gogh was depicting, and the positions of van Gogh's stars matched perfectly with their scientifically calculated positions at that moment. See [6]. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Your research, citing Boime and Krupp, would be a valuable addition to the article. JNW (talk) 01:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image of painting

I recently photographed this painting at MOMA and found differences between my photograph and the painting depicted in the photograph. In particular the large bright star to the right of the foreground object shows no evidence of black paint in the photograph I took.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/darthtuttle/2410874239/sizes/o/in/set-72157604519503226/

Should it be confirmed that the image used is the original? I'd submit my photo but I'm not sure that I have permission to reproduce the image for other than personal use.

Meconlen (talk) 18:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)