Nuit Étoilée (Starry Night), Vincent Van Gogh (1888) Source: http://escalbibli.blogspot.fr/2011/03/les-nuits-etoilees.html |
The reflection of light on water also drew me into this painting. As I observed at Monet's water garden yesterday, reflections in water can be beautiful, but they're also problematic to represent graphically. In this painting, the the triangle of light stretching down from each point of light on the river bank not only draws the eye into the terrestrial half of this painting, but also demonstrates the artist's capacity to give an impression of reality that the viewer perceives as realistic. The warm glow of these lights makes the village seem welcoming and adds humanity to a painting that is about the impersonal night's sky.
One article we read before leaving for Paris talked about how at the turn of the century, Paris was flush with painters, composers, writers, poets, and all other manner of artist - and that chance interactions between these individuals served to spark creative inspiration more rapidly than if the artists had been widely dispersed. (Article is here.) It is interesting, therefore, to note that the painting I found most entrancing of the whole of the Orsay was not painted by Renoir, Monet, or Bazille, who lived together, nor by any of the other artists who frequented Paris during their lifetimes. At the time Van Gogh painted this piece, he was living in artistic isolation in the French village of Arles, with limited contact with other artists. Obviously, his case does not disprove the article, but it is fascinating to note that I prefer not the collaborative paintings of the people centered in Paris, but the work of an artist in isolation working through his own thoughts. Perhaps it is because with their depictions of people or buildings, I need to work to find the message or emotion in a face, but with this starry sky, I know the message because there is none. The sky exists for itself, and Van Gogh is simply putting the simple clarity of the night on canvas.
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