A Critique of Starry Night and Vincent's Chair
By: Mike • Essay • 577 Words • January 5, 2010 • 1,808 Views
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A Critique of Starry Night and Vincent's Chair
One of these Post-Impressionists was the Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh believed that art was a form of expression. Painting was an emotional and spiritual experience for him. He painted not only how he interpreted his surroundings, but his sensations and feelings on his subjects. One of his most famous paintings, Starry Night, is a perfect representation of this Post-Impressionistic style of painting.
With its swirling colors and lines, Starry Night, incorporates not just the color and light that is found in the earlier works of these painters, but it shows how forms and feelings also came into play. "Waves and swirls" were applied so thickly in this piece that the paint itself cast shadows.
His heavy brushstrokes and vivid colors portray the night sky as crazy and chaotic and the village below as peaceful and serene.
The historical significance of Starry Night mirrors the events taking place during this era of modernity. During this time, scientists, writers and artists were seeking nontraditional ways of thinking. While scientists were learning about humans and physics in ways that had not been used before, and philosophers were finding new theories of life, writers and artists were disregarding old ways of writing and painting, and pursuing new forms of expression. Van Gogh, like his contemporaries, was ignoring the old styles of painting realistic images; instead, as portrayed in Starry Night, he was embracing a new revolution of modernity in art. For him, art was not a black night sky over a small town; art was a personal expression of how he felt when he looked at the sky over a neighboring town. The significance of his artistic interpretation is that he was a pioneer in the modern movement of artists.
Another piece of art that Van Gogh completed is entitled Vincent's Chair. Despite the