Reading Response 3

Today I will be discussing Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Starry night over the Rhone”.
First off the first thing I noticed was how much of the painting was the actual sky. I can’t clearly
depict where the horizon is between the water and the sky. Another thing that I noticed were that
Vincent used singular brushstrokes and they don’t look as clustered as some of the other
paintings Vincent has done. This is also the first painting that we saw in class that uses the color
yellow but this a blue dominant painting. I think that when Vincent painted this painting, I
believe that this painting shows death and/or grief. In the painting I see two people and boats.
The one thing I noticed was that the people look very small like they insignificant to the painting.
If you look closely to the painting you can see that the stars in the sky show the big dipper. The
big dipper has significance because it represents death. So, I believe that the story line of this
painting is that the two people portrayed in the corner are going through the heartbreak of death
or they are trying to grieve from the death of a loved one, pet, friend, etc. Another reason why I
believe that these people are dealing with the heartbreak of a death is because in the lady’s skirt
you can see hints of red and that makes me wonder if this death was a murder and the red in her
skirt could mean that blood was spilled. Also, with the boats in the background I can’t tell if the
people are about to get on them or if they are leaving. So maybe this shows that they are either
headed to a funeral for the death or they just got back from the funeral. When Vincent painted
this I think he intentionally made it difficult to tell what is happening in this picture. I also
noticed that the background stands out more than the people do. Vincent made the people in this
story very small almost trying to distract our eyes from seeing them. It also seems like Vincent
painted this as an observer in the painting. It looks like he painted the scene from head on or
from a couple of feet high in the air. It almost looks like the people are staring at him, but we
can’t tell what their facial expression is.