Van Gogh's <The Starry Night>

A night sky that appears to be swirling and moving gently from left to right, and the townscape sleeping beneath it. A crescent moon and stars emitting bright light. And, a large, black, flame-like cypress tree visible on the left.
What is depicted in Van Gogh's <The Starry Night> can be called a dream world that could not exist in reality. The viewer of the painting is drawn deep inside, lingering for a moment between dream and reality.
How was such a work, which brings about a mysterious and comfortable experience, created? And what did Van Gogh entrust to this work?
I would like to approach the background of its birth.

1. The End of the Dream in Arles

Van Gogh arrived in Arles in the south of France in February 1888, when the cold still lingered.
Van Gogh, who loved Arles where colors shone brightly under the sunlight, began to envision a dream of building a life community (utopia) here where artists could help each other.
That dream seemed to have taken a step toward realization when he began living together with Gauguin in the "Yellow House" in October.
However, the two were too different in personality and artistic views. The fact that they were incompatible became impossible to ignore as time went on.
This shouldn't be happening...
Van Gogh suffered and grew impatient with the difference between the ideal he had envisioned and reality.
He was afraid that the dream he believed to be wonderful would be destroyed.
And one day in December, a decisive incident finally occurred.
Van Gogh argued with Gauguin and attacked him with a razor. Fortunately, Gauguin was not injured, but perhaps out of self-reproach, Van Gogh cut off his own ear.
The dream of a utopia collapsed here.
Gauguin left for Paris, and the two never saw each other again.
And the residents of Arles, regarding Van Gogh, who had caused such an incident, as a "dangerous person," submitted a petition to have him confined. Van Gogh ended up being locked in a hospital.
This series of events tormented Van Gogh's spirit intensely. The dream he had pursued so single-mindedly was broken, and he had lost his place in Arles.
It would have been a natural progression for him to start thinking about wanting to leave this place.

2. In Saint-Rémy

In May 1889, Van Gogh voluntarily entered an asylum in Saint-Rémy, a town located east of Arles.
While fearing the nervous attacks that would occasionally strike him, Van Gogh continued to paint.
As if reflecting his own mental state, the canvas began to be covered with swirling, powerful brushstrokes.
And the new motif he "discovered" in this land of Saint-Rémy was the cypress tree.
In Europe, cypress trees were often planted in graveyards and had long been considered symbols of death. On the other hand, because they are evergreen trees that live a long time and do not shed their leaves, they have also been considered symbols of life and fertility.
And in the south of France, many cypress trees were planted as windbreaks to prevent the Mistral, a local wind unique to the region.
There were cypress trees in Arles as well, but it was only after coming to Saint-Rémy that Van Gogh "discovered" the beauty of their lines and proportions, like "Egyptian obelisks," and their dark green tones, and he was greatly fascinated by them.
They appeared to him as a suitable new motif to replace the sunflowers, which were deeply tied to his memories of Arles.
It was also convenient that while cypress trees were sometimes painted in the backgrounds of religious paintings or portraits with symbolic meanings, there were no examples of them being painted as a main motif.
I definitely want to make this cypress tree "my own."
Van Gogh, his passion ignited, immediately began to challenge himself with this new attempt.

This <Cypress Tree> in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a relatively early example.

Against a blue sky with a thin crescent moon, two large cypress trees rise high into the heavens, swirling as they go.
Most of the motifs, such as the clouds and the undergrowth, are expressed with swirling brushstrokes, and especially on the cypress trees, paints of green, black, and yellow are applied in thick layers. Looking at it, Van Gogh's hand movements come to mind.
The two trees, which almost melt into one against the sky, look like a huge black pillar of fire, and one can feel a power that seems as if it might break through the canvas and invade this side.

Looking at Van Gogh's letters, one can see that he was struggling, finding it more difficult than expected to paint cypress trees.
But perhaps it was a theme worth tackling precisely because it was difficult.
I want to paint it no matter what. I want to achieve it.
Finding something he could feel that way about became the key for Van Gogh to open up a new artistic frontier.

3. <The Starry Night>

From the beginning of his career, Van Gogh always adopted a style of painting with the motif placed right in front of him. Conversely, he could only paint "things he could see in front of him" exactly as they appeared.
Therefore, with the exception of works like <Café Terrace at Night>, which he painted with the help of artificial light, it was difficult to paint night landscapes with little light.

It was Gauguin who gave Van Gogh a hint to break through that limitation. When he was in Arles, Gauguin recommended his own method of building a canvas based on memory and imagination to Van Gogh. Van Gogh tried it, but thought it didn't suit him and stopped at that time.
However, it seems his state of mind changed through his continued correspondence with Gauguin even after moving to Saint-Rémy. He decided to challenge himself again to create a canvas incorporating memory and imagination.
Born from that attempt was <The Starry Night>.

This is thought to be a painting of the dawn sky looking east from the window of the room where Van Gogh was hospitalized.
The combination of the deep blue of the night sky and the yellow of the crescent moon and stars is a familiar combination from <Café Terrace at Night>, and they appear to emit an exceptionally bright light.
It is known that the positions of the moon in the upper right and the Venus painted slightly to the left of the center of the canvas match the actual starry sky.
The townscape visible below is thought to be based on memories of what he saw during the day. However, the cathedral with a high spire visible in the center is of a Dutch style from Van Gogh's hometown and does not exist in the actual landscape.
Above all, the most unusual element is the presence of the cypress tree, which occupies about one-third of the left side of the canvas. The pitch-black cypress tree, swaying and reaching toward the heavens in the foreground, is eerie, compounded by its flame-like shape.
Also, this technique of closing up on a single motif in the foreground to contrast it with the background and emphasize the depth of the canvas was learned and adopted from Utagawa Hiroshige's ukiyo-e print <Kameido Plum Garden>, which he had copied while in Paris.

Studies of color combinations, the results of learning from ukiyo-e, observations of the actual starry sky, and his own memories—various experiences, techniques, and memories that Van Gogh possessed are packed into this one piece depicting a night landscape.

The setback in Arles dealt a heavy blow to Van Gogh's spirit. Even so, he did not give up painting, and at the hospital in Saint-Rémy, he opened up a new form of expression.
One of the driving forces behind this was his strong attachment to the motif of the cypress tree.
However, for Van Gogh, the cypress was more than just a subject to aim for.
Holding meaning that spanned both death and life, the cypress, which twisted and stretched high toward the heavens, may have been an 'alter ego' that projected his own self—someone who, while fearful of nervous attacks and at times conscious of death, poured his energy into painting.

After painting the cypress in 'Countryside Road in Provence by Night' in May 1890, toward the end of his time in Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh set off for Auvers-sur-Oise in northern France, the place that would become his final resting ground.