3rd Grade
Listen to the night sounds. What are you thinking about? Do you have a place that is in your mind? Do you have a feeling that comes to you? What would it smell like there? Can you feel anything?
|
The Starry Night
Painted in 1889 - It has been a part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City since 1941.
A letter to Theo, from Van Gogh, stated that he had started a Starry Night painting in mid June of 1889. Then, Van Gogh wrote a letter to his brother, Theo, about his Starry Night painting...."All in all the only things I consider a little good in it are the Wheatfield, the Mountain, the Orchard, the Olive trees with the blue hills and the Portrait and the Entrance to the quarry, and the rest says nothing to me"; "the rest" would include The Starry Night. When he decided to hold back three paintings from this batch in order to save money on postage, The Starry Night was one of the paintings he did not send. Finally, in a letter to painter Émile Bernard from late November 1889, Van Gogh referred to the painting as a "failure."
Here are a few sketches that we think were parts that Van Gogh pieced together to make up this imaginary landscape of Starry Night....
There is so much to look at and learn about in this painting. Vincent Van Gogh was a very interesting character. He was a classic "starving artist", in every way you would imagine a starving artist to be. He didn't have much at all. He floated from town to town, painting every site he could in that area and then moving to a new town. He would do odd jobs just to make enough money to eat and buy painting supplies. And many times he wouldn't even have enough money for that. He would then write to his brother, Theo, and ask him for money for rent and painting supplies. He would chose to buy paint and brushes and canvases instead of eat. He would sometimes send his brother paintings to "pay him back." You see, Van Gogh wasn't liked while he was alive. People didn't like his paintings. No one thought they were good. He lived a sad life of always wanting to paint the world as he saw it, but everyone around him not appreciating the way he saw the world. He never did get to be "famous" while he was alive. He died thinking everyone hated his artwork. Wouldn't he be amazed that now he's known as one of the most famous painters in our history of art?!
Starry Night was painted in Van Gogh's studio (which was almost always his bedroom). He would walk around during the day and observe things. Then, he would go back to his studio to paint. He did not do any of his paintings "on site." He would paint his landscapes from memory. He would, however, take a sketchbook, or paper, with him and make sketches of what he was painting, he just didn't take his painting supplies to the place to paint what he was seeing, he painted from memory. This is actually very hard to do. Have you ever tried to paint something from your memory? This leads me to believe that this is partly why his paintings looked like they did. Things were sometimes " a little off" or maybe not realistic like we actually see them. Maybe he remembered seeing the stars shine like he painted them in the painting, but he likely didn't see them that way in real life. Another thing I learned about this painting was.... Van Gogh "found the church" during the time of this painting. He wasn't particularly religious before this painting. But, in the process of doing this painting, he decided that church was an important thing. Did you notice the church is in the center of the picture? This might be a clue to this fact. Do you know what that brownish/black thing is in the front left side of the painting? It's a cypress tree! He did many paintings that had this in them. You can see in one of the videos what it looked like during the day, too. Do you see the mountain range toward the middle of the picture? Can you find the foreground, Mid ground, and Background in the picture? Did you notice the lights are on in some of the houses, but not others? Some think this was another clue that was describing some of the emotions that Van Gogh was feeling at the time. He lead a very interesting life!
Starry Night was painted in Van Gogh's studio (which was almost always his bedroom). He would walk around during the day and observe things. Then, he would go back to his studio to paint. He did not do any of his paintings "on site." He would paint his landscapes from memory. He would, however, take a sketchbook, or paper, with him and make sketches of what he was painting, he just didn't take his painting supplies to the place to paint what he was seeing, he painted from memory. This is actually very hard to do. Have you ever tried to paint something from your memory? This leads me to believe that this is partly why his paintings looked like they did. Things were sometimes " a little off" or maybe not realistic like we actually see them. Maybe he remembered seeing the stars shine like he painted them in the painting, but he likely didn't see them that way in real life. Another thing I learned about this painting was.... Van Gogh "found the church" during the time of this painting. He wasn't particularly religious before this painting. But, in the process of doing this painting, he decided that church was an important thing. Did you notice the church is in the center of the picture? This might be a clue to this fact. Do you know what that brownish/black thing is in the front left side of the painting? It's a cypress tree! He did many paintings that had this in them. You can see in one of the videos what it looked like during the day, too. Do you see the mountain range toward the middle of the picture? Can you find the foreground, Mid ground, and Background in the picture? Did you notice the lights are on in some of the houses, but not others? Some think this was another clue that was describing some of the emotions that Van Gogh was feeling at the time. He lead a very interesting life!
Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life.
|
Some of his other paintings that became famous:
|
|
|
|
Let's combine printmaking with our Starry Night knowledge.....
Other artists who do artwork about night scenes:
Challenge: We will be printmaking to make textured paper that we will then use to create our own Starry Night pictures....
Student Samples:
Other Challenge: Make your own Starry Night. Where does your memory take you? What will be in your picture of Starry Night? If you are able to, do this in crayon or oil pastels, then put a layer of watery black watercolor over top of it. This will make it look like it's at night.
Step 1: Draw with pencil first. Make sure you add stars, a moon and a windy swoosh so you can easily see you were inspired by this painting. The rest is up to you. Then, add color by adding lines... not coloring it in.... it WILL have worm holes!!!
Finally, after all the color is added, make a very watered down black watercolor paint and "wash" that over top of the crayon... over the entire picture. This will make your landscape look like it's at night!
This is what it will look like when you add the black watercolor wash over top. The thick crayon marks will repel the water away from the crayon. We will then wipe off the extra.