Artist | Vincent van Gogh

Year | 1888

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

73.0 × 92.0 cm

Location

Musée d'Orsay↗, Niveau supérieur, Salle 36

Starry Night

From the moment of his arrival in Arles on 8 February 1888, Van Gogh was constantly preoccupied with "night effects." In April, he wrote to Theo about needing a starry night with cypresses or maybe above a field of ripe wheat, and in June, he confided to the painter Emile Bernard about longing to paint the "Starry Sky" that kept haunting him. In September, he told his sister, "Often it seems to me night is even more richly coloured than day." During the same month, he finally realised his obsessive project in Arles. This view of the Rhône marvellously transcribed the colours he perceived in the dark. Blues prevail—Prussian blue, ultramarine and cobalt—while city gas lights glimmer an intense orange and reflect in the water. The stars sparkle like gemstones. Unlike the later version in New York, the Musée d'Orsay’s Starry Night is more serene, an atmosphere reinforced by the presence of a couple of lovers at the bottom of the canvas.