Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and “Wheatfield with Crows”

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Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and “Wheatfield with Crows”

Introduction

Vincent Willem van Gogh, a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter, was among the most influential and prominent figures in Western art history. This artist created nearly 2,100 pieces of art, which included about 860 oil paintings (Richardson et al. 390). Despite van Gogh becoming more famous only after his death, he made a significant mark in the art industry with his work. He had a mental illness that caused his poverty, making him live virtually unknown regardless of his high-quality work. Two oil canvas paintings created by this artist will be the focus of this analysis, namely the “Wheat Field with Crows” and the “The Starry Night.” The rationale for selecting these two paintings centers on the fact that, apart from highlighting an essential facet of van Gogh’s life, they illustrate some features of post-impressionism. Van Gogh, through the two paintings, demonstrates a notable use of emotion, beauty, and color to facilitate symbolism and communicate complex themes.

Biography

Born in 30th March 1853, Martin presented van Gogh as a serious, thoughtful and quiet child in an upper-middle-class family (205). During his youth, he worked as an art dealer that often involved traveling. Depression set in, however, following his transfer to London that led van Gogh to turn to religion. Van Gogh spent some of his time as a Protestant missionary within Southern Belgium before he started drifting to solitude and ill health. After moving back with his parents, he began painting in 1881 while receiving financial support from his younger brother Theo. The two brothers maintained a long correspondence with each other through letters that have formed the basis for interpreting his pieces of art. A major setback in van Gogh’s life involved the fact that he suffered from psychotic delusions and episodes. Even though he worried about his mental stability, he was neglectful of his health since he rarely ate adequately and was a heavy drinker (Hughes 2).  He attended various institutions to deal with his depression until he finally shot himself in 1890 with a revolver causing him to die from his injuries. The “Wheat Field with Crows” and the “The Starry Night” are two pieces of art created while van Gogh was experiencing different emotional and mental turmoil. Analyzing the two will reveal how the artist was able to use color to communicate different emotions and themes.

The Starry Night

One of the most notable events in van Gogh’s life was that he cut off his ear in 1888 because of his mental illness (Martin 206). This stark act placed van Gogh on a path that led to his depression and eventually his death. The Starry Night was a masterpiece that van Gogh painted while at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum located near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Having lived well at the facility and receiving more freedom than any other patient, he had a studio where he could read and paint, which aided in his recovery. Van Gogh, unfortunately, relapsed and started suffering from hallucinations and even thoughts of suicide. Olson posits that this change in his health caused a tonal shift in his work where he began incorporating darker colors (36). The Starry Night exemplifies this shift where the blue color is more dominant in the painting, blending the hills and the sky. Furthermore, there is a little village at the base of the painting, which van Gogh presents in browns, blues and greys. The clear dark outlines of the buildings contrast stand in contrast to the yellow of the stars and the white of the moon, making the sky the center of attention.

The ethereal and dreamlike effect in the painting is symbolic of the dark periods in van Gogh’s life where he was suffering from hallucinations and suicidal tendencies. The brush strokes in the art are a testament to this assertion. For instance, the sky comprises spins of brush strokes so that each dab of color appears to be rolling. The clouds, in the piece, take this shape around the moon and the stars. Similarly, the cypress trees appear to be bending w while the hill seems to roll into the village below. The rigid lines that make up the small town contrast against the flow of the brush strokes as tiny trees around it tend to soften this inflexibility and rigidity. This contrast in styles is essential in the painting since it communicates the conflict between the natural and unnatural, which for van Gogh entailed a struggle between reality and dreams.

Wheatfield with Crows

This painting stands out as one of van Gogh’s most powerful and, consequently the most fiercely debated work. As a result, numerous interpretations about this painting arose with the most prominent one being that it was van Gogh’s suicide note painted on canvas. Others, with a much positive view, go beyond the superficial themes and subject matter to try and obtain a deeper meaning of the painting. An analysis of the letters shared between him and his brother Theo, according to Jia et al., revealed that the “Wheat Field with Crows” was not this artist’s final work, hence was not the supposed “suicide note” (859). Nonetheless, a symbolic analysis of the painting offers a much better view of van Gogh’s intent.

The crows are perhaps the most powerful motifs in the painting since they evoke a mood of tragedy and despair. This imagery is, therefore, symbolic of the sadness felt by van Gogh following the depression and mental illness from which he suffered. The order that he tries to establish in the painting was a strategy to resist his mental breakdown. Achieving this goal required van Gogh to divide the canvas into distinct portions, using color as the basis for identification. For example, the yellow wheat field, the black crows, the blue sky, the green grass and even the roads are evident in the image. Regardless, the stormy brushwork that von Gogh employs in this work resulted in tension and turbulence within the vicinity. The presence of the three paths exacerbates this disturbance by contributing to the unsettling tone set by the artwork. The trails in the left and right foreground sections seem to originate from nowhere and lead to nowhere as well. This confliction aligns with the confusion van Gogh was experiencing following the sporadic direction his life had taken.

Conclusion

These paintings offer an informed use of color to communicate emotional themes that surrounded the sad life of van Gogh. The two pieces of art employ color, in line with the provisions of post-impressionism, to offer a natural depiction of color. Van Gogh manipulated these elements to suit the different moods and challenges he faced. Furthermore, he effectively adopts color to depict symbolic images that evoke different reactions from the viewers, offering a broader platform that one can relate to the painting. Van Gogh’s individualized style of art was a tool that he used to vent the turmoil he experienced in his life.

 

 

Appendix

Appendix A: The Starry Night Image

Appendix B: Wheatfield with Crows Image

Works Cited

Hughes, Richard A. “Tragic Destiny in the Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh.” Lycoming College. Williamsport, USA. Reading.

Jia, Jia, et al. “Can we Understand van Gogh’s Mood?” Proceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on Multimedia – MM ’12, 2012, pp. 857-860.

Martin, C. “Did van Gogh have Ménière’s Disease?” European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Diseases, vol. 128, no. 4, 2011, pp. 205-209.

Olson, Donald W. “Vincent van Gogh and Starry Skies over France.” Celestial Sleuth, 2013, pp. 35-66.

Richardson, Bradford A., et al. “Neuroanatomical Interpretation of the Painting Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh.” Neurosurgery, vol. 81, no. 3, 2017, pp. 389-396.