1889-06 · Saint-Rémy-de-Provence · Knot of Silence

The Starry Night

About his most famous picture, he himself said little. Both of these things are true at once.

"The rest says nothing to me."

— Letter 800, 1889

before

At Saint-Rémy he painted night landscapes, the moon, the stars. This one came fairly late: the fields and sky seen from the asylum window, plus the outline of a village he imagined.

now

He did not write of The Starry Night as a legend. In the list of pictures he sent Theo (letter 805), it is merely a "Night study." In the same letter he called works like the moonrise, the olive trees and the night scenes things with exaggeration in their composition; and when he listed the pictures he thought rather better, The Starry Night was not at the front.

after

He went on painting olive trees, cypresses, fields, copies. After his death this picture entered circulation and became the most recognized of them all. But that was later; he did not see it himself.

Events

  1. Synaesthetic Precision · Letter 776

    Admitted to Saint-Paul asylum. From the window: a walled wheat field and distant mountains

  2. The Colour Experimenter · Letter 776

    Painted Irises in the first week — using painting to save himself

  3. Synaesthetic Precision · Letter 783

    Began painting cypresses — 'like an Egyptian obelisk.' Brushstrokes became extremely twisted

  4. Synaesthetic Precision · Letter 782

    Painted The Starry Night — but wrote only one sentence in his letter: 'a new study of a starry sky.' No explanation

From the Letters

J'ai encore un paysage avec des oliviers et aussi une nouvelle étude d'un ciel étoilé.

I still have a landscape with olive trees and also a new study of a starry sky.

Letter 782

Letter Sources

Van Gogh letter records referenced on this page, linked to the Van Gogh Letters Project. vangoghletters.org

Long-form reading connected to this node.

  1. What Did He Actually See? Around Jean-Pierre Luminet's research into The Starry Night: how the swirls, astronomical memory and artistic instinct in Van Gogh's skies actually meet. Open essay

Technique Evidence

This work appears as evidence in this site’s technique-evolution axis.

  1. The Shattering Stroke 1888.02 – 1889.05 Open period F474 / JH1592 Starry Night Over the Rhône Colour Representative of the changed colour system Impasto Visible impasto and thick brushwork Brushstroke Representative of directional brushwork
  2. The World in Motion 1889.05 – 1890.05 Open period F612 / JH1731 The Starry Night Colour Representative of the changed colour system Impasto Visible impasto and thick brushwork Brushstroke Representative of swirling brushwork