Art Critique on Starry Night by Van Gogh

The painting I chose to critique was the painting Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, it was created in the year of 1889 when van Gogh was living in a mental health asylum in a French village. There is no doubt that this painting has become one of the most famous paintings in art history. There are so many features of this painting that has made it memorable and it helps that the artist's other works are as sought over as well. One of the most significant elements of the painting is the use of color. There a re a variety of blues and greens that merge pretty well together and also yellows and oranges. The use of yellow and white helps the viewer draw attention to the sky when at firs looking at the painting. This helps the viewer identify the scene as night and that these are stars. The use of blues and greens help keep the yellows and whites stand out and support the painting as a "Starry Night." The two color schemes help balance each other out and successfully depict a nighttime scene.

Another element that is on display is the use of value and how the colors I discussed before help create a degree of lightness and darkness and the illusion of volume. In this case, there are so many ranges of lightness to darkness that are adjacent to each other. It is evident though that the viewer is looking from a higher altitude and is surveying the nighttime sky at a distance. This helps with the cypress tree being completely dark and creating a stark contrast of what the object is. The village underneath the sky and behind the tree is darker towards the back of the village where the hills are. The village houses closer to the tree have more brighter colors embedded with yellow and whites to show that this is a large stretch of land and the we are viewing this scene from afar.

Lastly, the element of line is a huge factor when evaluating this painting and van Gogh's intention when choosing how to express the scene onto a work of art. van