Starry Night

Leaf 357 – Art Inspired

 

Vincent Van Gogh - The Starry Night (1889)

I remember reading somewhere once, a theory that the reason some of Van Gogh’s paintings are so vividly coloured may have been due to his habit of drinking absinthe – the enchanted and enchanting, psychotropic fluttering green fairy of Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Moulin Rouge!’  (2001). Van Gogh painted the scene from his bedroom window at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in June 1889, after a severe mental breakdown. The stylised nature and exaggerated elements of the painting have prompted all sorts of speculation: astronomical, psychological, theological, etc. However, Van Gogh himself told his brother, Theo, that he thought the painting was a failure.

 

 

Overhead –

the starry night’s

absinthe-tinted glow.