Critical Analysis Starry Night over the Rhone Essay

Norris Freeman Art Appreciation Professor Gadson 20 February 2013 Critical Analysis: Starry Night Over the Rhone Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch artist from the mid 1800’s who was considered to have created approximately 2000 artworks. Growing up, he was classified to be highly emotional and having low self-esteem. Within those depressed emotions, it helped him pioneer the path of expressionism in his art pieces. But as he got more into him artwork he came more mature with his artwork and caused his color patterns and brush strokes to evolve into another style of art called Impressionism. Starry Night Over the Rhone was one of his last ‘few years’ paintings. It was painted in September of 1888. The canvas resides in Musà ©e dOrsay,†¦show more content†¦Another interesting part of this canvas is the direction of the reflections showing from the water. Van Gogh tries gives us this sense of calm movement with the reflection of the lighting going in a downward course. Also, the artist shows the viewer the grouping from the stars, to the lights from the houses, to the refl ection form the water and which again it gives us the sense of the lighting going in a downward motion. Another main focal point in this canvas was subject matter. This is where the objects or events are described. The artist gives us different objects such as the old couple seems displayed as depressing. Or you can observe it as normal couple, walking across the river, enjoying the night. He also gives us a boat which could possibly be giving us a correlation because the boat looks like it’s broken or about to sink. There is also another interpretation with the object that Van Gogh displays which is, the stars. Depending upon which way you want to take it, they look like flowers or fireworks. Also, there is a sense of false appearance with the houses. If you stare at just the bank you will notice that it is just a bunch of bright lights but if you pay attention to the water close to the bank, you will acknowledge the darkness or shadow of the houses. What was the reason for Vincent Van Gogh creating the Starry Night Over