Human Verified
The Starry Night
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 73.7 x 92.1 cm (29 x 36 1/4 inches)
- Year
- 1889
- Availability
- In a museum collection, not for sale
- Collection
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Accession Number
- 472.1941
- Credit Line
- Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange)
- Copyright
- Public domain
Description
Painted in June 1889 at Saint-Remy-de-Provence. The view is the one from the east window of Van Gogh's room at the asylum, taken just before sunrise. The bright shape at center left is Venus. The village at the bottom was not there. He added it.
How It Was Made, and What Changed
This is the painting people reach for when they argue that art comes from a person rather than a process. The proof is in the letters. Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo about the view from that window and about the morning star, and 903 of his letters survive in all. He wrote 820 of them. You can read what he thought he was doing, in his own hand, in the same month he did it.