Vincent van Gogh is a well renowned artist from his divse excellent paintings that he painted during the late 19th century. His works of Art have been appreciated throughout generations up to the current times; he painted different pictures ranging from the Starry Night, Starry Night over the Rhone, Sunflowers, The flowering Orchard among other works. His works have been applauded by many commentators across the globe. In this paper, I will critically describe the Starry Night over the Rhone painting painted in 1888.
Description of the Painting: the drawing is a landscape painting measuring 72.50 cm height, and 92.00 cm length. It is painted on Canvas in an oil medium and it is currently in a museum gallery in Paris, France (Starry night over the Rhone 3).
The Starry Night over the Rhone is an intuitional drawing that Van Gogh used to bring out a night sensation regarding River Rhone; he cleverly chose the oil colors and extraordinarily displays an actual sensation. He applied various colors like blue, purple, orange, green, yellow, brown and black. Each of these colors applied have different uses and meaning according to the painting. In fact, from his own words, the artist depicts that the night is more colored than the day. These exhibited talent and professional display of his artworks arousing attention to his audience. For instance, when one observes each color solely, the impression given by the picture displays figuratively through the colors. The painting is interpreted by giving the use of each color as used in the picture. The yellow zigzagged bars across the massive blue platform represent light reflections from the gas lighting across the luminosity blue water of River Rhone. This is a clear display of a real night situation over the Rhone River.
The sky is represented by the light-blue color on the foreground and illuminated by yellow dots that depict stars at night. The purple or deep-blue color is used to demonstrate the sky in the distant and sections of the Rhone that are not well lit (Adams 13). The red and orange color is used to show a burning sensation or fire burning on the other side of the river bank. The author wanted to bring out a wholly real pictorial presentation of the condition over the Rhone River at night. The huge pull up of brown color in the foreground symbolizes a hill on the foreside bank of the Rhone. Van Gogh portrays a wise and skillful use of colors to draw and show a feeling in a real world situation (Starry night over the Rhone 4).
The use of people in the picture is an artistic device that Gogh used to reveal the ambiance atmosphere of the Rhone River at night. The harmony and beauty of the Rhone is displayed to be impressive and appealing at night, so as to attract couples. These colors persuasively appeals to the public to come and enjoy the soothing and soft night lights as they leisurely walk by the banks of River Rhone. The rough impression between the vast blue colors is used to represent the rippling water in the Rhone River. He incorporates black color is to represent shadows and trees at the river bank (Adams 14).
In my own evaluation, the painting is great and appealing; van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone displays the actual and natural sensation of a night situation over the Rhone River. He clearly demonstrated the extensive use of colors to display a real environmental situation specifically at night. This picture teaches that good thoughts always culminate into tremendous quality work especially in painting. With regard to this, I invite and recommend everyone interested in oil painting to emulate Gogh’s works of painting. But although his work is great, there are few areas that I find needed more emphasis. For example, he needed to have put in a little more detail so as to make it easier to comprehend. In my opinion, the painting also lacked in some sense the ability to capture emotion and draw a person to have a closer view. Otherwise, his work is great and inspiring.
Works Cited
Adams Samuel. “Essential Van Gogh”. New York: Academic Books, 2001.
“Starry night over the Rhone”. Web. 32. Nov. 2010. http://www.vangoghreproductions.com/paintings/1888-33.html
