Vincent van Gogh Paintings » 1889

Starry Night Over the Rhone, Painting by Vincent van Gogh

admin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:59:33 +0000

Starry Night over the Rhone is a painting by Vincent van Gogh, executed in late September 1888. The painting shows Arles at night, the city where van Gogh lived at that time. The artist was fascinated of painting at night and the theme of lightning effects and the nightly sky is also to be found in several other paintings by van Gogh. The most famous one is without doubt Starry Night.

In a letter to his sister, Wilhelmina van Gogh wrote that the night seemed to him often „more colored than the day”. While some stars appear lemon or fire pink, others were rather green or bluish. To van Gogh it was clear that painting a starry night is much more than just ptting some white dots on black bleu.

The painting was first exhibited in 1889 at the annual exhibition of Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris, together with his painting Irises, submitted by his brother Theo. Currently the painting is to be seen at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

admin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:57:52 +0000

Starry Night (sometimes also: cypress and village) is maybe the most famous painting by Vincent van Gogh. Starry Night was painted it in June 1889 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, southern France, where van Gogh stood in the psychiatric clinic Saint-Paul-de-Mausole. The painting shows the view from his hostpital window. However, van Gogh probably painted Starry Night from his memory during day in a studio. We know few about why van Gogh chose this motif, though he mentioned Starry Night in a letter to his brother Theo (Letter Nr.595).

The pen drawing of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night, sometimes believed to be the preliminary version of Starry Night, was actually executed after the painting.

The partially considered as a preliminary drawing Starry Night (formerly Kunsthalle Bremen) is after the painting, in the period between the 25th June and 2 July 1889 emerged. Unlike the painting, the drawing of Starry Night shows only ten stars and from the farmhouses smoke rises into the sky. The theme of a starry night already appeared in September 1888, when van Gogh’s executed his painting Starry Night Over the Rhone.

Irises - Painting by Vincent van Gogh

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:30:37 +0000

Vincent van Gogh: Irises

Irises is one of the paintings Vincent van Gogh executed in 1889, the last year before his suicide. Irises was executed as oil on canvas, with the dimensions of 71 cm × 93 cm. Today it is exhibited in J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California.
Van Gogh painted Irises when he was in the asylum of the Monastery of St. Paul de Mausole in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, soon before his first attack he had there and has some relevance in this regard as he spoke about the painting as “the lightning conductor for my illness”. Van Gogh was positive to escape from becoming insane if he kept one with painting.
Irises has some influences of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock printings, a quite common influence during those times. Vincent van Gogh considered Irises rather to be a a study, hence even a sketch is missing. However, his brother Theo quickly realized the importance of this painting and did not hesitate to submitt it to the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants where it was exhibited in 1889, together with Vincent’s painting Starry Night Over the Rhone.

Van Gogh: Bedroom in Arles

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:16:13 +0000

The name Bedroom at Arles, sometimes also Vincent’s Bedroom, refers to three different paintings and two drawings in letters, all of them executed between 1888 and 1889 by Vincent van Gogh in the Yellow House, Arles. The paintings are now exhibited in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

The painting shows a very simply furnished room with one bed, two chairs and a table. The overall impression might be called rustic and almost bald. There is no person in the room. The Bedroom paintings of van Gogh show how the painter lived and what friends he used to have: there are three portraits on the wall (including a self-portrait) and a mirror.

The colors are typical for van Gogh, bold and roughly applied, yet bright with thick black separation lines.

The Bedroom in Arles was meant to be a contrast to van Gogh’s “Night Café”, which features a sharp contrast between red and green. Van Gogh used in the Bedroom paintings the complementary colors yellow ocher and violet, which are much calmer than the signal colors.