Historical ContextualizationStarry Night, a probably one of the best known paintings ever, was painted in 1889 by Vincent Van Gogh. Unlike many of his works, Starry Night was painted from Van Gogh's memory, which some credit the emotion in this piece to. His unique, recognizable style was formed after his two year stay in Paris in 1886, where he was exposed to impressionism and neo-impressionism. Despite his popularity now, Van Gogh only sold one painting, The Red Vineyard, in his life time.
When Van Gogh painted Starry Night, he said it was a view from his window in the asylum he was staying at. He admitted himself to the asylum, after a bout of madness, which resulted in him getting in a fight with his friend, cutting off part of his left ear, and giving it to a prostitute. During the last two years of his life, Van Gogh painted over four hundred paintings; a hundred and fifty of them were painted in the asylum. Van Gogh had suffered from mental illness all his life and his depression only grew as he aged. He killed himself in 1890 from a bullet wound in the chest. He was only thirty-seven years old.
Wow...those short paragraphs do tell a lot about Van Gogh. You did a good job of telling the history behind the piece. Knowing that he drew this in a mental institution changed the way I look at it. I knew about the ear, but didn't know he gave it to a prostitute. Crazy man...great writing though :)
ReplyDeleteIt was good to show us who Van Gogh was (Holy cow, the computer is saying "Van Gogh" is mis-spelled!). It sheds a lot of light on his work. Your second sentence could be clearer, I think, if you said something like, "...a fact to which some credit the emotion in the piece."
ReplyDeleteMy only question to you Kiara is this, why is it considered one of the best known paintings? That was the one question I had as a reader and I don't think I was able to answer it really by the end of the paper. I'm sorry if this seems like a harsh question/comment, but I do think we are all trying to learn from each other. Yes?
ReplyDeleteI just wondered, why the last sentence in the first paragraph? It feels like a pretty random fact to me, especially in connection to the paragraph which seems to be on the formation of his style. Beautiful piece though, I love it. Maybe that's why I wish you had gone more into what the paragraph started on, I was really curious. :)
ReplyDeleteI've never been a big fan of impressionism art. I like to know exactly what I'm looking at. Your couple of paragraphs were very informative.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the facts that I learned about Van Gogh throughout what you have written so far! I also liked the different styles of sentences that you used!
ReplyDeleteWhoa very cool! I didn't realize there was so much behind that picture. Only thing I caught was a typo in the beginning, "Starry Night, a probably one of the best...."
ReplyDeleteYou might want to get rid of the a.
That blended really well. Nicely done, I was involved and wanting to read more.
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