As we prepare for One Starry Night this weekend, I thought about the painting The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. The painting is as famous as the artist. You can see it not just in a museum but everywhere, on T-shirts, magnets, and coffee mugs. The fact that it is so familiar can make you forget what makes it so wonderful. That Starry Night resonates with so many people and is a testament to its timeless and universal beauty.
The sky appears divine beyond human comprehension and just out of reach. The Van Gogh Gallery website describes it as follows: "The straight lines and sharp angles divide it from the rest of the painting, seemingly separating it from the "heavens" of the sky. Then it is as if you go down a level to the trees and the village...and the church's spire stretched to the sky. Van Gogh brings God to the village.”
There is evidence that Van Gogh was on a spiritual search. A letter to Theo after having painted Starry Night Over the Rhône, confessing to a "tremendous need for, shall I say the word—for religion—so I go outside at night to paint the stars."[1] He wrote about existing in another dimension after death and associated this dimension with the night sky. "It would be so simple and would account so much for the terrible things in life, which now amaze and wound us so, if life had yet another hemisphere, invisible it is true, but where one lands when one dies. Hope is in the stars." [2] Art historian Meyer Schapiro says it was created under the "pressure of feeling" and that it is a "visionary [painting] inspired by a religious mood." [3] Loevgren calls The Starry Night "an infinitely expressive picture which symbolizes the final absorption of the artist by the cosmos" and which "gives a never-to-be-forgotten sensation of standing on the threshold of eternity." [4] A film was made several years ago starring William Dafoe as Van Gogh appropriately titled “At Eternity’s Gate.” Van Gogh was asking the big questions, he was seeing things that others may not see but unfortunately he struggled with mental illness.
There is something divine about the painting. It highlights the wonder of the stars and their creator of them rather than what is solely on earth. The work reflects not merely the artistry of Van Gogh but more so the creator that has created stars for us to see. In line with our recent study in Ecclesiastes, we begin to see that God is the main actor on the stage of his creation – making our eyes see such beauty.
Our village is creating wonder, bringing people back to a time and place many centuries ago, but it points to the wonder of God becoming man – any artwork or display can never transcend this. During the business of this season, let us be attentive to eternity entering our world with the arrival of the Christ child. He is the ultimate beauty, goodness, and worthy of worship. We can stay at eternity’s gate gazing at the stars in wonder or we can enter in.
Sources
1, 2 https://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starry-night.html
3, 4 Naifeh, Steven and Gregory White Smith (2011). Van Gogh: The Life. New York: Random House.
