This painting is in the first room you enter in MOMA’s classical collection of modern art. The room has two doorways.
A gallery, MOMA, NY
At the farthest corner from both doorways and beyond a vitrine which slows the traffic towards that corner hangs this painting of van Gogh.
Next to it Henri Rousseau’s ‘The Sleeping Gypsy’ sleeps undisturbed (1897, oil on canvas. Henri Rousseau, 1847-1910, French).
The Starry Night, St. Remy, June 1889, oil on canvas. Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890
Mobbed for all the hours the museum is open, it is difficult to get an untrammeled view of the painting.
Placed any closer to either door and the painting would disrupt traffic in and out of this room so as to need constant clearing.
The Starry Night, St. Remy, June 1889, oil on canvas. Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890
Guards always close to this painting because people want to get close to the surface as if they want never to forget the experience of its physical presence.
Detail of The Starry Night, St. Remy, June 1889, oil on canvas. Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890
You note that it was painted one year before the artist’s suicide and while he was in an asylum in southern France.
Detail of The Starry Night, St. Remy, June 1889, oil on canvas. Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890
It is a representation made during daylight hours of a night view which the artist knew to be descriptively true, descriptively untrue and which he also imagined.
The Starry Night, St. Remy, June 1889, oil on canvas. Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890
With colours which he knew to be descriptively true, descriptively untrue and symbolically and emotionally true.
A representation of the way we (may) see, imagine and live our lives.
An image which, for its boldness of design, colour, intent and execution, and for the difficulties of its creator’s life and for his early death, has long ago entered into us.
