Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night: Great Art Explained

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I would like to thank all my Patreon supporters, in particular
David Abreu, Christa Sawyer Eric Mann, and Pawel Juszczyk.

"What a brilliant series this is" - Stephen Fry on Twitter 12 December 2020

"Thoroughly researched and cleverly presented, with stunning visuals, Great Art Explained makes you realise that familiarity with a work of art sometimes makes us indifferent to its power" - Forbes Magazine, 9 July 2020

Great art explained. James Payne discusses 'The Starry Night'.

I started "Great Art Explained" during lockdown. My aim is to make videos which focus on one great artwork. I want to present art in a jargon free, entertaining, clear and concise way with no gimmicks.

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Vincent van Gogh was a largely self-taught artist who didn’t pick up a paintbrush until he was 30 years old.

Just seven years later, he would be dead.

It was really his last four years where he developed the style we would come to know him by, and these were also his most prolific years. Once he found his way, he was making up for lost time.


My English subtitles are available, as well as many other languages thanks to volunteers
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Τώρα με υπότιτλους στα ελληνικά
Thanks to Michael Payne and Laura Arumí Arderiu for the Spanish Translation.
Thanks to Bart Vergouwe for Dutch Subtitles.
Thanks to Cosimo Botticelli for the Italian Subtitles
Questo video è disponibile con sottotitoli in Italiano, premi sull'icona delle impostazioni ⚙️
Bosnian subtitles by Ajdin Islamovic - thank you!
Farsi subtitles by Hamed Manoochehri - thank you!
Thanks to Charles Xue for Chinese subtitles.
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Hindi subtitles by Mrityunjay Vikram Singh
French subtitles by Ismael Kraeber
Hungarian subtitles by Melinda Fodor
Vietnamese subtitles by Katie Mahp
Turkish subtitles by Burak Akbas
Arabic subtitles by Heav Ismail
German Subtitles by Victoria Drabik
Polish subtitles by Pawel Noster
Portuguese (Br) subtitles by Gustavo Lyra
Greek Subtitles by Lefteris Tsanas

CREDITS

All the videos, songs, images, and graphics used in the video belong to their respective owners and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

Photo of Van Gogh bedroom - Saint Rémy de Provence Tourisme


BOOKS

Starry Night: Van Gogh at the Asylum by Martin Bailey (recommended)

Vincent Van Gogh: The Asylum Year by Edwin Mullins
Van Gogh's Ear: The True Story by Bernadette Murphy (excellent)
On the Verge of Insanity: Van Gogh and His Illness - Various
Van Gogh Paintings: The Masterpieces by Belinda Thomson

The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh (Penguin Classics)

[annachristensen]

Something I've always found inspiring about Vincent van Gogh is how he wasn't the child prodigy, but began painting at 30 - it's never too late to find your spark 🌼

[jonathanchavez]

“If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is grass in the beginning” -Van Gogh

[MaryArts]

"He made these paintings despite his mental health, not because of it"
I want to preach this line, cause people often say that mentally ill people are gifted. Like: "your illness gave you the ability to draw"
No, it is the person themselves, who actively refined their skills. They draw despite their illness. It helps them heal, it helps them express themselves and it is not easy to draw, when the illness tells you to cut off your ear instead.
I like this line, cause it implies that mentally ill people can be in control and can be strong enough to pursue their dreams despite their illness. People should recognize how much of an archivement it is to actually get up and work/paint when being mentally ill.

[vedicwarriorOriginal]

Can we all appreciate what a great human being Van Gogh's brother was? Supported him until the last moment. Wow! Thanks for sharing, mate. 👍

[normadesmond]

The place is still a psychiatric hospital even today. And the patients are still painting there as a form of therapy. I think he would have loved that!

[unwritten_zephyr]

“He made these paintings despite his mental health, not because of it.”
I’m not exactly sure why, but this video and that line in particular brought me to tears. Van Gogh was a brilliant mind, too brilliant for the world he lived in. Hearing this side of his life in this video was beautiful, and made me love his art more than I already did.

[christopheradderley]

"I want to touch people with my art,
I want them to say: he feels deeply,
he feels tenderly."
Vincent van Gogh

I think he succeeded ♥️

[RoulinBrooks]

So well done. I've been a Van Gogh specialist for more than 25 years and I often find documentary pieces about him to be disappointing and full of inaccuracies. Not here. Extremely well researched and presented. Great work.

[elymatawaran]

"He first picked up a brush at 30 and 7 years later he was dead, " He created about 2, 100 artworks including around 860 oil paintings mostly done in the last 2 years of his life. So he was a prolific genuis! Amazing.

[isabelalmeida]

I can't believe that I'm allowed to watch such a high quality content for free. Thank you so much, you don't know how, many people you're helping with this.

[Whisper_]

"He transformed the pain of his life into ecstatic beauty." From the "Vincent and the Doctor" episode of Doctor Who. The man was, and still is, an inspiration to so many of us who struggle with mental and emotional issues.

[umutcankangal]

Really astonishing that Hokusai was influenced by Dutch paintings and did his Great Wave with a low horizon just like 17. century Dutch paintings. Then a Dutchman living in France got influenced by that painting and created one of his most famous artwork.

[mania]

“He made these paintings despite his mental illness and not because of it”.Well said!!Its the first time i hear an explanation like that and not the regular that you have to be mad to be a good artist

[dimitreze]

"For they could not love you,
but still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
on that starry, starry night.
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you."

[Wooley]

Vincent painted the way he felt in the moment, most were not thought out over time, but painted quickly before the thought or imagery in his mind left. That's why he painted so fast, much like a writer will feverishly write his thoughts before they are gone. If you will notice in Starry night, the Church has no lights in the window as most of the homes around to have light in windows.

[watching]

His paintings always look made of straw, like he wove together such intricate patterns. His impressionism made the night sky look like a purple light show, yet it fits in with the transformed landscapes. I saw his paintings at the DIA (Detroit institute of Art) and it his famous self-portraits. I didn't realize it was the original painting until later

[aria]

Poor Vincent. It's so good to know the Asylum he went to actually helped him and had an understanding of how mental health works. Not even today would he have been helped like that, unfortunately.

[plumli]

"He created these images DESPITE his illness, not because of it"

BRAVO. Vincent Van Gogh wasn't a unknown starving and raving artist, he someone with an illness who had friends and family who loved and cherished him and his works. Someone who was intelligent, hardworking and studied art with a passion. Someone who's whole life and career was dragged down by and ultimately cut short by depression.

[Psychol-Snooper]

From childhood I'd always found Van Gogh's paintings frightening. As a young adult I saw his Irises at the Getty found it to be one of the most transformative experiences of my life. What I saw was not madness, but rather visual poetry. It changed the way I saw everything.

[drferry]

As a cardiologist, we liked to tell the medical students that the halos around the stars in this and other of his paintings were because Van Gogh actually saw them, resulting from his treatment with digitalis leaf, or purple foxglove, a popular treatment for "dropsy" or heart failure, that he might have had because of his syphilis. It was difficult to get the dosage of digitals correct because it had a very narrow therapeutic to toxic ratio; consequently many patients were given toxic doses. One side effect was seeing yellow-green halos around bright objects, hence, Starry Nights.