Van Gogh Night Star (The Starry Night) Stationery

From the moment of his arrival in Arles, on 8 February 1888, Van Gogh was preoccupied with the representation of night effects. In April 1888, he wrote to his brother Theo: "I need a starry night with cypresses or maybe above a field of ripe wheat." In June, he confided to the painter Emile Bernard: "But when shall I ever paint the Starry Sky, this painting that keeps haunting me" and, in September, in a letter to his sister, he evoked the same subject: "Often it seems to me night is even richly colored than day". During the same month of September, the finally realized his obsessive project. He first painted a corner of nocturnal sky in Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles (Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Muller). Next came this view of the Rhône in which he marvelously transcribed the colors he perceived in the dark. Blues: Prussian blue, ultramarine and cobalt. The city gas lights glimmer an intense orange and are reflected in the water. The sparkle stars like gemstones.