The Starry Night

painting by Vincent Van Gogh (Museum: Museum of Modern Art)

Oil on canvas, 73.7 cm × 92.1 cm

Museum of Modern Art, New York City

Gallery label (2011):
"This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big," van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, from France. Rooted in imagination and memory, The Starry Night embodies an inner, subjective expression of van Goghs response to nature. In thick, sweeping brushstrokes, a flamelike cypress unites the churning sky and the quiet village below. The village was partly invented, and the church spire evokes van Gogh's native land, the Netherlands.