Composition of the painting starry night. The inexplicable beauty of space - all about the painting “Starry Night”

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Today we will be writing a free copy of Vincent Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night". This is one of the most famous and recognizable paintings ever created. Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night" is a symbol of the power of human imagination, one of the most amazing and incredible landscapes you can imagine.

While working on the painting, we will try to get at least a little closer to the author’s technique, to convey the inherent dynamism, rhythm and impasto of the brushstroke inherent in this work. Let's try to guess the mood and energy of the picture.

How did Vincent Van Gogh paint his painting?

It is possible that one night, Vincent Van Gogh left his house, armed with a canvas, brushes and paints, with the completely convincing intention of painting the most incredible landscape, with the most incredible stars, moon, light, sky, wind...

Let's take a close look at the painting by Vincent Van Gogh, admire it, try to catch all the details and start writing our “Starry Night”.

Vincent van Gogh writes "Starry Night"

The process of painting this painting and the result of the work will make you fall in love with this painting and the author’s work.

“I still have a passionate need,” I will allow myself this word, “of religion. That’s why I left the house at night and began to draw stars,” Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo.

It's worth going to New York just to meet her, " Starry night"Van Gogh.

Here I would like to give the text of my work on the analysis of this picture. Initially, I wanted to rework the text so that it would be more consistent with the article for the blog, but due to glitches in Word and lack of time, I will post it in its original form, which was difficult to restore after a program failure. I hope even the original text will be at least somewhat interesting.

Vincent Van Gogh(1853-1890) – a prominent representative of post-impressionism. Despite the difficult path of life and quite late development Van Gogh as an artist, he was distinguished by perseverance and hard work, which helped achieve great success mastery of drawing and painting techniques. Over the ten years of his life devoted to art, Van Gogh went from an experienced viewer (he began his career as an art seller, so he was familiar with many works) to a master of drawing and painting. This short period became the most vivid and emotional in the artist’s life.

The identity of Van Gogh is shrouded in mystery in the performance modern culture. Although Van Gogh left a large epistolary legacy (extensive correspondence with his brother Theo Van Gogh), accounts of his life were composed long after his death and often contained fictitious stories and distorted views of the artist. In this regard, the image of Van Gogh emerged as a crazy artist who, in a fit, cut off his ear, and later completely shot himself. This image attracts the viewer with the mystery of the work of a crazy artist, balancing on the brink of genius and madness and mystery. But if you examine the facts of Van Gogh’s biography, his detailed correspondence, then many myths, including those about his madness, are debunked.

Van Gogh's work has become accessible to a wide circle only after his death. At first his work was attributed to different directions, but they were later included in Post-Impressionism. Van Gogh's handwriting is unlike anything else, so even with other representatives of post-impressionism it cannot be compared. This is a special way of applying a smear, using different equipment strokes in one work, a certain coloring, expression, compositional features, means of expression. Exactly this characteristic manner We will analyze Van Gogh using the example of the painting “Starry Night” in this work.

Formal-stylistic analysis

"The Starry Night" is one of Van Gogh's most famous works. The painting was painted in June 1889 in Saint-Rémy and has been kept in the Museum since 1941 contemporary art in NYC. The painting is painted in oil on canvas, dimensions – 73x92 cm, format – horizontally elongated rectangle, this easel painting. Due to the nature of the technique, the picture should be viewed at a sufficient distance.

Looking at the picture, we see a night landscape. Most of the canvas is occupied by the sky - stars, the moon, depicted large on the right, and the moving night sky. Trees rise in the foreground on the right, and a town or village is depicted below on the left, hidden in the trees. The background is dark hills on the horizon, gradually becoming higher from left to right. The painting, based on the plot described, undoubtedly belongs to the landscape genre. We can say that the artist brings to the fore the expressiveness and some conventionality of what is depicted, since expressive distortion (color, brush stroke technique, etc.) plays the main role in the work.

The composition of the picture is generally balanced - on the right with dark trees below, and on the left with a bright yellow moon above. Because of this, the composition tends to be diagonal, including because of the hills increasing from right to left. In it, the sky prevails over the earth, since it occupies most of the canvas, that is, the upper part prevails over the lower. At the same time, the composition also has a spiral structure that gives the initial impetus to the movement, expressed in a spiraling flow in the sky in the center of the composition. This spiral sets in motion some of the trees, the stars, the rest of the sky, the moon, and even the lower part of the composition - the village, the trees, the hills. Thus, the composition transforms from the static nature usual for the landscape genre into a dynamic, fantastic plot that captivates the viewer. Therefore, it is impossible to distinguish the background and clear planning in the work. The traditional background, the background, ceases to be a background, since it is included in the overall dynamics of the picture, and the foreground, if you take the trees and the village, is included in the spiral movement and ceases to stand out. The layout of the picture is vague and unsteady due to the combination of spiral and diagonal dynamics. Based on the compositional solution, it can be assumed that the artist’s angle of view is directed from bottom to top, since most of the canvas is occupied by the sky.

Undoubtedly, in the process of perceiving the picture, the viewer is involved in interaction with the image. This is obvious from the described compositional solution and techniques, that is, the dynamics of the composition and its direction. And also thanks to the color scheme of the painting - the color scheme, bright accents, palette, brush stroke technique.

A deep space has been created in the painting. This is achieved due to the color scheme, composition and movement of strokes, and the difference in the size of strokes. Including due to the difference in the size of the image - big trees, a small village and trees near it, smaller hills on the horizon, a large moon and stars. The color scheme builds depth due to the dark foreground of the trees, the muted colors of the village and the trees around it, the bright color accents of the stars and the moon, the dark hills on the horizon, shaded by a light strip of the sky.

The picture does not meet the criterion in many ways linearity, and most expresses just picturesqueness. Since all forms are expressed through color and strokes. Although in the image of the bottom plan - the town, trees and hills, a distinction is made with separate dark contour lines. It can be said that the artist deliberately connects certain linear aspects to emphasize the difference between the upper and lower planes of the painting. Therefore, the top plan, the most important compositionally, in meaning and in terms of color and technical solutions, is the most expressive and picturesque. This part of the painting is literally sculpted with color and brushstrokes; there are no contour or any linear elements.

Concerning flatness And depths, then the picture gravitates towards depth. This is expressed in the color scheme - contrasts, darker or smoky shades, in technique - due to the different directions of strokes, their sizes, in composition and dynamics. At the same time, the volume of objects is not clearly expressed, as it is hidden by large strokes. Volumes are only outlined with individual contour strokes or created through color combinations of strokes.

The role of light in the picture is not significant in comparison with the role of color. But we can say that the sources of light in the picture are the stars and the moon. This can be seen in the brightness of the settlement and trees in the valley and the darker part of the valley on the left, in the dark trees in the foreground and the darkening hills on the horizon, especially those located on the right under the moon.

The silhouettes depicted are closely related to each other. They are inexpressive due to the fact that they are painted with large strokes; for the same reason, the silhouettes are not valuable in themselves. They cannot be perceived separately from the entire canvas. Therefore, we can talk about the desire for integrity within the picture, achieved by technology. In this regard, we can talk about the generality of what is depicted on the canvas. There is no detail due to the scale of what is depicted (far away, therefore small towns, trees, hills) and the technical solution of the painting - drawing with large strokes, dividing what is depicted into separate colors with such strokes. Therefore, it cannot be said that the picture conveys the variety of textures of what is depicted. But a generalized, rough and exaggerated hint of the difference in shapes, textures, and volumes due to the technical solution of the painting is given by the direction of the strokes, their size and the actual color.

Color in "Starry Night" plays main role. Composition, dynamics, volumes, silhouettes, depth, light are subject to color. Color in a painting is not an expression of volume, but a meaning-forming element. Thus, due to the color expression, the radiance of the stars and the moon is exaggerated. And this color expression creates not just an emphasis on them, but gives them significance within the picture, creates their semantic content. The color in the painting is not so much optically accurate as it is expressive. Using color combinations creates artistic image, expressiveness of the canvas. The painting is dominated by pure colors, combinations of which create shades, volumes and contrasts that influence perception. The boundaries of color spots are distinguishable and expressive, since each stroke creates a color spot that is distinguishable in contrast with neighboring strokes. Van Gogh focuses on spot-strokes that fragment the volumes of what is depicted. This way he achieves greater expression of color and shape and achieves dynamics in the painting.

Van Gogh creates certain colors and their shades using a combination of color spots and strokes that complement each other. The darkest parts of the canvas are not reduced to black, but only to a combination of dark shades of different colors, creating in perception a very dark shade, close to black. The same thing happens with the lightest places - there is no pure white, but there is a combination of strokes of white with shades of other colors, in combination with which white ceases to be the most important in perception. Highlights and reflections are not clearly expressed, as they are smoothed out by color combinations.

We can say that the painting contains rhythmic repetitions of color combinations. The presence of such combinations both in the image of the valley and the settlement, and in the sky creates the integrity of the perception of the picture. Different combinations of shades of blue with each other and with other colors throughout the canvas show that it is the main color developing in the picture. The contrasting combination of blue with shades of yellow is interesting. The surface texture is not smooth, but embossed due to the volume of strokes, in some places even with gaps in the blank canvas. The strokes are clearly distinguishable and significant for the expression of the picture and its dynamics. The strokes are long, sometimes larger or smaller. They are applied in different ways, but with quite thick paint.

Returning to binary oppositions, it must be said that the picture is characterized by openness of form. Since the landscape is not fixated on itself, on the contrary, it is open, it can be expanded beyond the boundaries of the canvas, which is why the integrity of the picture will not be violated. The picture is inherent atectonic beginning. Because all the elements of the picture strive for unity, they cannot be taken out of the context of the composition or canvas, they do not have their own integrity. All parts of the picture are subordinated to a single concept and mood and do not have autonomy. This is expressed technically in composition, in dynamics, in color patterns, and in the technical solution of strokes. The picture represents incomplete (relative) clarity depicted. Since only parts of the depicted objects (tree settlement houses) are visible, many overlap each other (trees, field houses), the scales have been changed to achieve semantic accents (the stars and the moon are exaggerated).

Iconographic and iconological analysis

The actual plot of “Starry Night” or the type of landscape depicted is difficult to compare with paintings by other artists, much less to place in a series of similar works. Landscapes depicting night effects were not used by the Impressionists, since for them it was precisely lighting effects V different time daylight hours and work in the open air. Post-Impressionists, even if they did not turn to landscapes from life (like Gauguin, who often painted from memory), still chose daylight hours and used new ways of depicting light effects and individual techniques. Therefore, the depiction of night landscapes can be called a feature of Van Gogh’s work (“ Night terrace cafe", "Starry Night", "Starry Night over the Rhone", "Church in Auvers", "Road with Cypresses and Stars").

Characteristic of Van Gogh's night landscapes is the use of color contrasts to emphasize important elements of the picture. The contrast of shades of blue and yellow was most often used. Night landscapes were mostly painted by Van Gogh from memory. In this regard, they paid more attention not to reproducing real lighting effects seen or of interest to the artist, but emphasized the expressiveness and unusualness of light and color effects. Therefore, light and color effects are exaggerated, which gives them additional meaning in the paintings.

If we turn to the iconological method, then in the study of “Starry Night” we can trace additional meanings in the number of stars on the canvas. Some researchers connect the eleven stars in Van Gogh's painting with the Old Testament story of Joseph and his eleven brothers. “Listen, I had a dream again,” he said. “There was in it the sun and the moon and eleven stars, and they all bowed down to me.” Genesis 37:9. Given Van Gogh's knowledge of religion, his study of the Bible and his attempts to become a priest, the inclusion of this story as additional meaning justified. Although it is difficult to consider this reference to the Bible as determining the semantic content of the picture, because the stars make up only part of the canvas, and the depicted town, hills and trees are not related to the biblical plot.

Biographical method

When considering The Starry Night, it is difficult to do without a biographical method of research. Van Gogh painted it in 1889 while he was in the Saint-Rémy hospital. There, at the request of Theo Van Gogh, Vincent was allowed to paint in oils and make drawings during periods of improvement in his condition. Periods of improvement were accompanied by creative upsurge. Van Gogh devoted all his available time to working outdoors and wrote quite a lot.

It is noteworthy that “Starry Night” was written from memory, which is unusual for Van Gogh’s creative process. This circumstance can emphasize the special expressiveness, dynamics and color of the picture. On the other hand, these features of the picture can be explained by mental state the artist while he was in the hospital. His social circle and opportunities for action were limited, and the attacks occurred with varying degrees of intensity. And only during periods of improvement did he have the opportunity to do what he loved. During that period, painting became a particularly important way of self-realization for Van Gogh. Therefore, the canvases become more vibrant, expressive and dynamic. The artist puts great emotionality into them, since this is the only possible way express it.

It is interesting that Van Gogh, who describes his life, thoughts and works in detail in letters to his brother, mentions The Starry Night only in passing. And although by that time Vincent had already moved away from the church and church dogmas, he writes to his brother: “I still passionately need,” I will allow myself this word, “in religion. That's why I left the house at night and started drawing stars."

Comparing "Starry Night" with more early works, we can say that it is among the most expressive, emotional and exciting. Tracing the change in his writing style throughout his creative work, there is a noticeable increase in expressiveness, color intensity, and dynamics in Van Gogh’s works. "Starry Night over the Rhone", written in 1888 - a year before "Starry Night", is not yet filled with that culmination of emotions, expressiveness, color richness and technical solutions. You can also notice that the paintings that followed “Starry Night” became more expressive, dynamic, emotionally heavy, and brighter in color. Most vivid examples- “Church in Auvers”, “Wheat field with crows”. This is how “Starry Night” can be described as the last and most expressive, dynamic, emotional and brightly colored period of Van Gogh’s work.

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Vincent Van Gogh. Starlight Night. 1889 Museum of Modern Art, New York

Starlight Night. This is not just one of the most famous paintings Van Gogh. This is one of the most notable paintings in all Western painting. What is so unusual about it?

Why, once you see it, don’t you forget it? What kind of air vortices are depicted in the sky? Why are stars so big? And how did a painting that Van Gogh considered unsuccessful become an “icon” for all expressionists?

I have collected the most Interesting Facts and the mysteries of this picture. Which reveal the secret of her incredible attractiveness.

1. “Starry Night” was written in a mental hospital

The painting was painted during a difficult period in Van Gogh's life. Six months earlier, living together with Paul Gauguin ended badly. Van Gogh's dream of creating a southern workshop, a union of like-minded artists, did not come true.

Paul Gauguin left. He could no longer stay close to his unstable friend. Every day there are quarrels. And one day Van Gogh cut off his earlobe. And he handed it to a prostitute who preferred Gauguin.

Exactly what they did with a defeated bull at a bullfight. The cut off ear of the animal was given to the winning matador.

Van Gogh could not stand the loneliness and the collapse of his hopes for the workshop. His brother placed him in a shelter for the mentally ill in Saint-Rémy. This is where “Starry Night” was written.

All his mental strength was strained to the limit. That's why the picture turned out to be so expressive. Fascinating. Like a bundle of bright energy.

2. “Starry Night” is an imaginary, not a real landscape

This fact is very important. Because Van Gogh almost always worked from life. This was the issue over which they most often argued with Gauguin. He believed that you need to use your imagination. Van Gogh had a different opinion.

But in Saint-Rémy he had no choice. The sick were not allowed to go outside. It was forbidden to even work in one’s own room. Brother Theo agreed with the hospital authorities that the artist would be given a separate room for his workshop.

So it’s in vain that researchers try to find out the constellation or determine the name of the town. Van Gogh took all this from his imagination.

3. Van Gogh depicted turbulence and the planet Venus

The most mysterious element of the picture. In the cloudless sky we see vortex flows.

Researchers are confident that Van Gogh depicted the phenomenon of turbulence. Which can hardly be seen with the naked eye.

Exacerbated mental illness consciousness was like a bare wire. To such an extent that Van Gogh saw what an ordinary mortal could not.

400 years earlier, another person realized this phenomenon. A person with a very subtle perception of the world around him. . He created a series of drawings with vortex flows of water and air.

Another interesting element of the picture is the incredibly large stars. In May 1889, Venus could be observed in the south of France. She inspired the artist to depict bright stars.

You can easily guess which of Van Gogh's stars is Venus.

4. Van Gogh thought Starry Night was a bad painting.

The painting was painted in a manner characteristic of Van Gogh. Thick long strokes. Which are neatly placed next to each other. Juicy blue and yellow colors make it very pleasing to the eye.

However, Van Gogh himself considered his work unsuccessful. When the painting came to the exhibition, he casually commented about it: “Maybe it will show others how to depict night effects better than I did.”

This attitude towards the picture is not surprising. After all, it was not written from life. As we already know, Van Gogh was ready to argue with others until he was blue in the face. Proving how important it is to see what you write.

This is such a paradox. His “unsuccessful” painting became an “icon” for the Expressionists. For whom imagination was much more important outside world.

5. Van Gogh created another painting with a starry night sky

This is not the only Van Gogh painting with night effects. The year before, he wrote “Starry Night over the Rhone.”

The Starry Night, which is in New York, is fantastic. Space landscape eclipses the earth. We don’t even immediately see the town at the bottom of the picture.

Starry Night - Vincent Van Gogh. 1889. Oil on canvas. 73.7x92.1

The master was cramped within real world. He considered that it was his imagination, the play of his imagination, that was necessary for a more complete image. It is known that by the time the painting was created, the author was undergoing another course of treatment; he was allowed to work only if his condition improved. The artist was deprived of the opportunity to create on location. He created many works during this period (including Starry Night) from memory.

Powerful, expressive strokes, thick colors, complex composition - everything in this picture is designed to be perceived from a great distance.

In an amazing way, the author managed to separate the sky from the Earth. One gets the impression that active movement in the sky does not in any way affect what is happening on the ground. Below is a sleepy town, ready to fall into a peaceful sleep. Above are powerful streams, huge stars and incessant movement.

The light in the work comes precisely from the stars and the moon, but its direction is indirect. Glare illuminating night city, look random, broken off from the general powerful vortex reigning over the world.

Between heaven and earth, connecting them, the cypress grows, eternal, undying. The tree is important for the author; it is the only one capable of transmitting all the heavenly energy to those living on earth. The cypress trees strive for the sky, their aspiration is so strong that it seems that in another second the trees will part with the earth for the sake of the sky. The centuries-old branches directed upward look like tongues of green flame.

A combination of rich blue and yellow flowers, a well-known heraldic combination, creates a special atmosphere, fascinates and attracts attention to the work.

The artist repeatedly turned to the night sky. IN famous work“Sky over the Rhone” the master does not yet take such a radical and expressive approach to depicting the sky.

Many people interpret the symbolic meaning of the painting in different ways. Some are inclined to see in the picture a direct quote from the Old Testament or Revelation. Some consider the excessive expressiveness of the painting to be the result of the master’s illness. Everyone agrees on one thing: towards the end of his life, the master only increases the internal tension of his works. The world is distorted in the artist’s perception, it ceases to be the same, new forms, lines and new emotions, stronger and more accurate, are discovered in it. The master draws the viewer's attention to those fantasies that make the world more bright and non-standard.

Today this particular work has become one of Van Gogh's most recognizable works. The painting is in an American museum, but the painting comes to Europe regularly and is exhibited in largest museums Old World.

The painting “The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh is considered by many to be the pinnacle of expressionism. It is curious that the artist himself considered it an extremely unsuccessful work, and it was written at the moment of the master’s mental discord. What is so unusual about this painting? Let’s try to figure it out later in the review.

1. Van Gogh wrote “Starry Night” in a mental hospital

The moment of creating the painting was preceded by a difficult emotional period in the artist’s life. A few months earlier, his friend Paul Gauguin came to Van Gogh in Arles to exchange paintings and experiences. But a fruitful creative tandem did not work out, and after a couple of months the artists finally fell out. In the heat of emotional distress, Van Gogh cut off his earlobe and took it to a brothel to the prostitute Rachel, who favored Gauguin. This was done with a bull defeated in a bullfight. The matador received the cut off ear of the animal.

Gauguin left soon after this, and Van Gogh's brother Theo, seeing his condition, sent the unfortunate man to a hospital for the mentally ill in Saint-Rémy. It was there that the expressionist created his famous painting.

2. “Starry Night” is not a real landscape

Researchers are trying in vain to figure out which constellation is depicted in Van Gogh’s painting. The artist took the plot from his imagination. Theo agreed at the clinic that a separate room would be allocated for his brother, where he could create, but the mentally ill would not be allowed outside.

3. Turbulence in the sky

Either a heightened perception of the world, or the discovery of a sixth sense, forced the artist to depict turbulence. At that time, eddy currents could not be seen with the naked eye.

Although 4 centuries before Van Gogh, another brilliant artist Leonardo da Vinci depicted a similar phenomenon.

4. The artist considered his painting extremely unsuccessful

Vincent Van Gogh believed that his “Starry Night” was not the best painting, because it was not painted from life, which was very important to him. When the painting came to the exhibition, the artist said about it rather dismissively: “Maybe she will show others how to do night effects better than I did.”. However, for the expressionists, who believed that the most important thing was the manifestation of feelings, “Starry Night” became almost an icon.

5. Van Gogh created another “Starry Night”

There was another Starry Night in Van Gogh's collection. The stunning landscape cannot leave anyone indifferent. The artist himself wrote to his brother Theo after creating this painting: "Why bright stars in the sky cannot be more important than the black dots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, so we die to reach the stars.".

Today the works of this artist cost fabulous money, but