The Starry Night

Displayed in MOMA


“This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise,” the artist wrote to his brother Theo, “with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big.” Rooted in imagination and memory, The Starry Night embodies an inner, subjective expression of van Gogh’s response to nature. In thick sweeping brushstrokes, a flamelike compress unites the churning sky and the quiet village below. The village was partly invented, and the church spire evokes van Gogh’s nature land, the Netherland.