Today, I had the opportunity to see Van Gogh's Starry Night.
No, not that Starry Night. The other one, the Starry Night Over the Rhône.
While it might not be as famous, it is equally entrancing. In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh described the composition in great detail:
“Included a small sketch of a 30 square canvas - in short the starry sky painted by night, actually under a gas jet. The sky is aquamarine, the water is royal blue, the ground is mauve. The town is blue and purple. The gas is yellow and the reflections are russet gold descending down to green-bronze. On the aquamarine field of the sky the Great Bear is a sparkling green and pink, whose discreet paleness contrasts with the brutal gold of the gas. Two colorful figurines of lovers in the foreground.”
Aquamarine, royal blue, mauve, blue, purple, yellow, russet gold, green-bronze, sparkling green, pink, brutal gold. When reading his description of the painting, one realizes that Van Gogh was chasing color, concerned more about how the various shades interacted rather than the actual physical things they represented. This is true not only of Van Gogh, but for many of the impressionist and post-impressionist painters. As I strolled through the Musée D’Orsay, the soft, dreamlike hues of Monet, Cézanne, and Pissarro enveloped me.
Art, like beauty in general, takes many shapes and sizes. Things are not always meant to take a definite form. Sometimes, they are fluid, transitioning seamlessly between various states, harmonizing with the environment, and conveying emotions more through spontaneous expressions than structured procedures. Van Gogh was searching for the essence of the night, the stars, the skies, and everything that falls below.
In an ironic way, I believe this mirrors the sentiments from my writing yesterday, which was about finding balance between structure (i.e. planning) and serendipity (i.e. spontaneity). I ended the piece not only by discussing Van Gogh, but by concluding that one should “Just do the things they need to do.”
Seek the essence of what's truly important.
Focus on the colors of life, just like Van Gogh.
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Today, I had the opportunity to see Van Gogh's Starry Night.
No, not that Starry Night. The other one, the Starry Night Over the Rhône.
While it might not be as famous, it is equally entrancing. In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh described the composition in great detail:
“Included a small sketch of a 30 square canvas - in short the starry sky painted by night, actually under a gas jet. The sky is aquamarine, the water is royal blue, the ground is mauve. The town is blue and purple. The gas is yellow and the reflections are russet gold descending down to green-bronze. On the aquamarine field of the sky the Great Bear is a sparkling green and pink, whose discreet paleness contrasts with the brutal gold of the gas. Two colorful figurines of lovers in the foreground.”
Aquamarine, royal blue, mauve, blue, purple, yellow, russet gold, green-bronze, sparkling green, pink, brutal gold. When reading his description of the painting, one realizes that Van Gogh was chasing color, concerned more about how the various shades interacted rather than the actual physical things they represented. This is true not only of Van Gogh, but for many of the impressionist and post-impressionist painters. As I strolled through the Musée D’Orsay, the soft, dreamlike hues of Monet, Cézanne, and Pissarro enveloped me.
Art, like beauty in general, takes many shapes and sizes. Things are not always meant to take a definite form. Sometimes, they are fluid, transitioning seamlessly between various states, harmonizing with the environment, and conveying emotions more through spontaneous expressions than structured procedures. Van Gogh was searching for the essence of the night, the stars, the skies, and everything that falls below.
In an ironic way, I believe this mirrors the sentiments from my writing yesterday, which was about finding balance between structure (i.e. planning) and serendipity (i.e. spontaneity). I ended the piece not only by discussing Van Gogh, but by concluding that one should “Just do the things they need to do.”
Seek the essence of what's truly important.
Focus on the colors of life, just like Van Gogh.
