Van Gogh’s Starry Night

A History of Matter: A matter of History

A Review of Van Gogh’s Starry Night

Gloria Stern

Having spent a spring night under the stars at Joshua Tree National

Park, I looked up and saw what Van Gogh saw projected against the dawn sky

when he painted the now-famous painting, Starry Night. I saw Saggitarius

and I saw Scorpio. The impression is indelible in my mind. Standing before

this canvas and truly perceiving its contents, one can never stare into

the heavens without it bringing the remembrance to the surface of

consciousness. Albert Boime has something to say on this disc about the

validity of this Van Gogh masterpiece. The opening screen of the disc is

a full color, full screen electronic reproduction of the Irises (one of my

very favorite paintings) that are now on exhibit on the second floor of

the Paul J. Getty Museum in Malibu, California. Positioning myself at the

face of this work is an experience that has never failed to move me deeply.

This screen alone is reason enough for me to own this disc. While I may

certainly never possess an original Van Gogh, I can luxuriate in owning my

own (albiet digitized) reproduction.

This disc, named Van Gogh’s Starry Night is the creation of

Albert Boime, an art historian at University of California at Los

Angeles. He is the author of several books and the recipient of grants

and awards. His contention that the myth of Van Gogh’s madness, based on

the vibrant, intensified colors and shapes of his paintings, is just that

- a myth.

He holds that to understand Van Gogh, one must put his life in context.

Citing the mind set of the times, that of a violent conflict fomenting in

society between moralizing religiosity and the emerging sciences of

astronomy as epitomized in the World’s Fair of 1889, Professor Boime

contends that Van Gogh’s work expresses the school of thought that

bespeaks of clarity and wonders that are natural.

The scientific approach is espoused by the works of Giotto, Copernicus,

Tycho Brache, and Kepler. Writers, such as, Hans Christian Anderson,

Carlyle, Longfellow, Whitman and Milton, in his Paradise Lost, championed

the same point of view, yet none are vilified as being bereft of sanity.

Extracting excerpts from Van Gogh’s letters, Albert Boime quotes a moment

of exceptional lucidity when he counters charges of madness: “Whomsoever

transforms the society from the insane asylum from their world to the

outside world, – “ce mysticisme!” (this is mysticism).

The plethora of familiar images coming from Van Gogh’s brush, the swirling,

surreal pigments and shapes, are catalogued and displayed in defense of the

argument proposed by Boime. Even without the philosophic debate at its

center, this disc is a valuable repository of hundreds of the many

familiar classic paintings which are a vanguard of delight as seen posted

on your desk top screen. The screen changes are slow and the music

intermittent, at best, but the work of Van Gogh needs no apology nor any

defense. To speak to the sanity of Van Gogh is as necessary as arguing the

catalog color number of a spring daffodil.

School House Scorecard

Product:	Van Gogh’s Starry Night
Company:	VOYAGER 1 Bridge St Irvington, NY 10533-9919
Cost:	Not Available

System Requirements:

Not Available

Breakdown:

Ease of Use 5
Learning Value 5
Entertainment Value 4
Graphics 5
Sound 2

Overall Score: