Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh
Credit: Vincent van Gogh; Digital image courtesy of Wikipedia
Posted on 10/11/2009 5:33:15 AM PDT by sig226
Explanation: The painting Starry Night is one of the most famous icons of the night sky ever created. The scene was painted by Vincent van Gogh in southern France in 1889. The swirling style of Starry Night appears, to many, to make the night sky come alive. Although van Gogh frequently portrayed real settings in his paintings, art historians do not agree on precisely what stars and planets are being depicted in Starry Night. The style of Starry Night is post-impressionism, a popular painting style at the end of the nineteenth century. The original Starry Night painting hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, New York, USA.
Aww c’mon man. Some of these recent APODs have been ripoffs.
i thought about leaving off this one, but it is one of the most recognizable paintings in the world.
Brought to to you by NASA, the National AERONAUTICS and SPACE Administration. The same people who bring you global warming propaganda. Their taste in “art” matches their taste in “science”.
Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer’s day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.
Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they’ll listen now.
Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue.
Colors changing hue, morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand.
Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they’ll listen now.
For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you.
Starry, starry night.
Portraits hung in empty halls,
Frameless head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget.
Like the strangers that you’ve met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.
Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they’re not listening still.
Perhaps they never will...
put me in the ‘never will’ category, specifically the ‘never cared’ subset. i agree with heinlein on modern art.
It wasn't popular. That the style was popular is part of:
The Great 20th Century Art Scam
What was popular:
The Bayeux Tapestry has an image of the October 1066 visit of Halley’s Comet on it because it appeared and was credited for William the Conqueror’s victory at the Battle of Hastings; but the tapestry is not considered a meaningful reference about the comet itself other than to verify the date that it appeared.
This is Art that features something about the sky, but it is certainly not “Astonomy”. With all of the possible images to choose from just Hubble, it’s inexplicable why NASA chooses pics like this one.
ping dog pix
It was probably picked by Michele Obama so she could win an art award.
...
Tough crowd.
Post art, see stars!
Liberals distort and destroy everything they touch.. it’s appalling that no one has really heard of these 19th century
masters... I am amazed.. its truly a shame.
Three things explain half of it: World War I, World War II, and the Great Depression. What terrible catastrophes held the world in their grip in the first half of the 20th Century? What unspeakable atrocities and tragedies caused the deaths of tens of millions of people, from want and war? Somebody was to blame! Some one had to be blamed. This could not have just been written by the fates. God could not have wanted mankind to suffer so.
The clear, evident, and easy scapegoat for all that went wrong was quite simply "The Old Order".
It wasn't just the leaders that were guilty. The entire last generation was to blame.
Okay. Books, magazines, newspapers, and scholarly journals exist in plenitude from this era. It's an interesting idea, laying the modern art movement at the feet of World War I, but is it true? Western society was changing at the time, but how do the changes link to art? Ayn Rand discusses the conversion of art and drama into drivel in The Fountainhead, published in 1943. It obviously predates the worst of World War II, at least the worst parts the Allies were to experience and learn about later. His opinion makes sense, but he offers few facts to support his conclusion.
Then, the other critical cause was the consideration of powerful economic reasons for dealers to wholeheartedly espouse this new modernist ethic. If you were an Alma-Tadema or Bouguereau dealer, you had a list of a hundred clients wanting to buy their work. But their technique permitted them to only paint one canvas every 3 to 8 weeks, so you stood biting your nails waiting for each canvas that you knew was sold long before it was completed. Modernists, however, could often complete a single canvas each and every day. Some did even more than that. This was certainly true with all of the biggest names. Whether we are speaking of Picasso, Modrian, Matisse or De Kooning. Many of their works could be completed in a couple of days or a couple of hours. Their dealers now had an enormous supply to meet whatever demand they could generate. They had high motivation to prove that these paintings were not only as valuable as the prior generation's, but that they were even better. And when the money pouring in from this consummate con game, they were able to buy themselves historians, writers and critics, who happily developed complex, convoluted arguments to justify their philosophical positions.
This is equally intriguing, and rather easily proved or disproved. Sales figures and numbers of cataloged works would bear it out very quickly. The financial factor is obvious and needs no further explanation. Of course art dealers will support art that makes money for them. But do the numbers of works sold, and the prices commanded support this accusation? I'd like to know the answer to that. I wish that Mr. Ross had provided some references to support his claim. It sounds plausible, and I refer to the various tv shows that recycled scripts throughout the 1970s as proof that art is highly susceptible to mass market economics.Remember when Hill Street Blues first aired, and how acclaimed it was, because they didn't rehash a pile of Mod Squad scripts?
Anyway, thanks for the article. It was a very interesting piece.
Thanks for the education. I’ve always preferred the old masters to “artists” like Jackson Pollock. In the past, I have felt out of it because I like literalist art, which is sneered upon by the “art experts.” I like realistic depictions where the world is not distorted beyond all recognition.
Even an ape can paint abstract art.
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