The Starry Night by Van Gogh (Time)

 Post-Impressionism 

 Georges Seurat
"Sunday afternoon on theIsland of Grand Jatte"
1884-1885

The post-impressionism movement was founded by a group of young artists such as Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Guaguin and Georges Seurat that took Impressionism style to a new direction.It started in the mid 1880's till around the early 1900's. The term indicates the link there is with Impressionism, the artists still drew objects and scenes that were in front of them and using short brush  strokes but made it more expressive and developed their own style. An artist and critic, Roger Fry organised an exhibition in Grafton Galleries London, 1910 with the name 'Manet and the Post-Impressionists', it was Fry that came up with the term Post-Impressionists.The same movement  inspired other movements such as Cubism, Expressionism and Pointillism.Each artist took an aspect from Impressionism and exaggerated it and created their own style and focused on the emotional, spiritual, symbolic and structural elements. Georges Seurat developed the brush to a million dot and founded the Pointillism movement while Van Gogh used more vibrant colours and painted thickly on the canvas using the impasto technique.Van Gogh used energetic brush strokes forcefully and expressed his emotions more, he later founded the Expressionism movement. By time they went to a modern journey from the past to the future. They pushed the Impressionists ideas more and built a solid foundation for modern art of the 20th century.

Vincent Van Gogh 

Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch artist from Groot-Zundert, Netherlands born in 1853. Van Gogh was part of the group that formed the Post-Impressionism, until he started to get interested more in Expressionism.The idea of careful analysis of the scene or objects and effects of colour and light, Van Gogh wanted to destroy it and used more vivid colour and short expressive brush strokes. The spiritual and emotional side of his art led him to Expressionism were emotions and moods are more expressed. In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris were he met other artists such as Degas, Pissaro, Gauguin, Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec. During that time his main influences were Impressionism and Japanese woodcuts, it was during his stay at Paris that got obsessed with bright, symbolic and expressive colours. All of his works were produced in 10 years, the most famous are 'The Starry Night", "The Potato Eaters" and many more.Gauguin and Van Gogh were about to establish a school but it failed after Van Gogh attempted to kill Gauguin. During his life Van Gogh suffered from metal illnesses such as hallucinations and depression and in July 1890 he shot himself. From all the paintings he had painted in his lifetime only one got sold,  it was "Red Vineyard at Arles"; (Puskin Museum Moscow). 

The Starry Night -Time

The Starry Night, 1889, Museum of Modern Arts New York

Van Gogh had the desire to paint the night sky 'en plein air' like an Impressionist although he had his doubts if he can achieve his aim. This painting was done in June 1889, on the window of his room at Saint-Remy de Provence during the time when he was suffering from mental illnesses.Although he wanted to paint it from nature, it was done in daylight and drew it from his memory. In the center it shows the village of Saint Remy and added a cypress tree. This drawing can be compared with the one one that Van Gogh painted a year before, "The Starry Night Over the Rhone". It was painted in September 1888 at the hospital in Arles.Unlike "Starry Night" this one was done directly from nature during the night using a gas lamp to work. The Ursa Major was repositioned from north to south. Time in this two paintings is an important factor. Both of them were painted in a different month, season and year, although the two shows a clear, starry night, the atmosphere around may have varied a bit. In Starry Night over Rhone, Van Gogh captured a moment in time while the other depended on his memory and good observational skills.In Starry Night there is movement, the stars are in a swirl while the other is more still. Night time is usually associated with still and calm atmosphere, but for the latter we see the opposite.

The Starry Night Over the Rhone, 1888

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