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Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night

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A very popular work of art by Vincent Van Gogh would be The Starry Night. Vincent Van Gogh depicted a night in the town as a symbolic image of emotion with the exploding stars, a night where one can dream, and the comfort of others as homes are brightly lit. Through this painting, Vincent van Gogh expresses personal insight and feelings through it. Van Gogh had a mental illness and it said that between seizures, he would do these paintings because it allowed him to have great clarity. Van Gogh painted The Starry Night by memory and his work symbolize his great illness and a moment of sanity since he was at Saint Remy during the time he painted this portraying what he saw from the window of his bedroom. During the time this painting was made, …show more content…

The different shapes throughout the painting like the stars and the houses as well as the colors expressed in the sky and in the dark hillsides and the texture of the rich and thick strokes in the painting create these Art Principles. Unity is shown in the painting as all the elements belong together and fit with one another to create a harmonious whole. The bright yellow-blue night sky is filled with stars and movement around it which guides the viewer's eyes in the same movement as the lines go not only in the sky but in the hills. The hills are moving upward and then downwards onto the brightly lit buildings repeating harmoniously in the painting. The variety of the orange color is seen in the stars and moon and in some of the houses represented as a light. Patterns are seen in the skylines and stars as they move across. Asymmetrical balance is seen in the work of art because even with the patterns, the right and left sides are not the same because of the different and variety of elements that balance together based on their meaning. The large moon in the painting is where you look at the longest because of its size which draws attention to the stars around it balance it. The small yellow stars balance out the dark and large blue sky because the warm dark blue color is heavier than the cool yellow color. The focal point of the painting would be attention grabber which is the big moon position in the top right corner with its bright colors of orange-yellow and its big size to call attention to it. The stars in the midnight blue sky show the subordination of the painting since there is lesser interest in those areas. Eyes are drawn from left to right in direction to the focal point of the painting like a force that shows the path the viewer's eyes need to follow which is provided by the swirling

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