Starry Night is probably Vincent van Gogh's most famous painting. Instantly recognizable because of its unique style, this work has been the subject of poetry, fiction, CD-ROMs as well as the well known song "Vincent" or "Starry, Starry Night" by Don McLean.
While there's no denying the popularity of Starry Night, it's also interesting to note that there is very little known about Vincent's own feelings toward his work. This is mainly due to the fact that he only mentions it in his letters to Theo twice (Letters 595 and 607), and then only in passing. In his correspondence with his brother, Vincent would often discuss specific works in great detail, but not so in the case of Starry Night. Why? It's difficult to say.
Starry Night was painted while Vincent was in the asylum at Saint-Rémy and his behaviour was very erratic at the time, due to the severity of his attacks. Unlike most of Van Gogh's works, Starry Night was painted from memory and not outdoors as was Vincent's preference. This may, in part, explain why the emotional impact of the work is so much more powerful than many of Van Gogh's other works from the same period.
Some people have made stylistic comparisons to Vincent's other well known and equally turbulent work Wheatfield with Crows. Does the tumultuous style of these works reflect a tortured mind? Or is there something more we can read within the whorls Vincent's raging night sky? This is what makes Starry Night not only Vincent's most famous work, but also one of its most frequently interpreted in terms of its meaning and importance.
Some people have speculated about the eleven stars in the painting. While it's true that Vincent didn't have the same religious fervour in 1889, when he painted the work, as he did in his earlier years, there is a possibility that the story of Joseph in the Old Testament may have had an influence on the composition of the work.
http://www.vggallery.com/
Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer´s day
With eyes that know the darkness is my soul
Shadows on the hills, sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land
Now I understand what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps, they´ll listen now
Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent´s eyes of china blue
Colors changing hue, morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist´s loving hand
Now I understand what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps, they´ll listen now
For they could not love you
And still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside 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
Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty hall
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can´t forget
Like the strangers that you´ve met
The ragged man in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow
Now I think I know what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity, and
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they´re not listening still
Perhaps, they never will
