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Starry Night over the Rhone, 1888
‘The starry sky at last, actually painted at night, under a gas-lamp’ was how Van Gogh described this view of Arles from across the River Rhône. Despite painting it largely outdoors and in real time, he made compositional choices to achieve the effect he was after by positioning the constellation of Ursa Major above the scene and inventing the foreground lovers. Their presence was essential to his conception of the picture's status as a ‘poetic subject’.
Oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris, Donation of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Kahn-Sriber, in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Fernand Moch, 1975