Starry Night

Although "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh is very popular, it's still my favorite work of art so far. Most artwork is seen to be good if it emotionally moves the viewer, however, I mostly just like this painting because it is aesthetically pleasing. I love blues and greens and I feel that they are the colors, other than yellow, that stand out the most to me. I also love this painting for its texture. The different style of Van Gogh by using short choppy strokes, and not blending the colors is what I believe attracts me the most. So basically, any Van Gogh would be interesting to me, but I think the colors and the fact that I love to look at the the real stars outside is what sets this painting apart in my eyes. And although I was fortunate enough to see other Van Gogh paintings, I have yet to see "Starry Night." In relation to the Horowitz reading, color I believe is a huge element that stands out. The bright yellows contrasted with the dark patches in this painting cause the the stars to stand out. However, I don't think Van Gogh really used color to separate the land in the sky which I think is kind of unusual. To move into another element though, I think Van Gogh's use of lines made the distinction of the sky and land much easier to notice. This also coincides with the texture of the painting in that the choppy, unblended strokes also create curvy lines that create movement throughout the painting. The texture also keeps the painting from being detailed which I think makes it much more interesting because the viewer can then add their own imagination to what the real landscape may have looked like.






I thought I would post a link to a website about Vincent Van Gogh's life because I although I knew he was kind of crazy, it was interesting to see what he had been like before that.
http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/bio.html