Vincent and the Starry Night

Starry, Starry Night

January 13th 2023

The Starry Night- three words laced in perfect harmony, as if chanted in a rhyme, flowing through space and time, just as the swirly strokes in the painting, swishing and turning above, beneath and all around.

If memory is to be trusted, my initiation with Van Gogh, and hence my baptism into Impressionism, began much early in life, through the brief readings of art history in my painting class. But just as anything absent is soon forgotten, Vincent and his art faded into oblivion, unnoticed. Eventually, in 2017, a complete collection of the paintings of Van Gogh (Taschen series) was acquired- a hefty book with colored glossy pages, almost 3 kilograms in weight, that smelt of fresh printer ink each time someone flicked through. Then on, for any guest who would be seated on the couch in the living room, it would be hard to miss the three inch wide book resting on the bookshelf in my Kolkata home. Soon, there was a time when a young lad in college flipped it every night before sleep. Gradually, the acquaintance between a teen and an artist grew, the emotions transpired: the passion so vigorous that it would drive him to Amsterdam into the Van Gogh Museum. The Sunflowers, the Cherry Blossoms, the Yellow House. Masterworks, tours de force. 

Yet just as most often an eclipse ring would fall short of the diamond dazzle, something felt incomplete. Unfulfilled. Like a disconcerting denouement. The work of art that a thirty-four year old Vincent had painted during his final days from the mental asylum in Saint-Remy, one that has enraptured artists and critics alike for centuries, was yet to be witnessed. Thereby I began my wait. 

Then finally, early in 2023 the trip to the Museum of Modern Art, dearly called MoMA by members and non-members alike, happened. The afternoon of 6th January. MoMA was supposedly open till 8 pm (first Friday of every month MoMA stays open beyond its usual closing time at 5). My friend Dibyendu had agreed to accompany me to the museum and so we reached the venue at 2:30 pm. Soon after entering the exhibit, I was standing amongst a crowd of people in a hallway on the fifth floor, its walls painted dark maroon, when I began contemplating how it would feel to get closer to Gogh. Lost in my thoughts as I was while scrutinizing vintage photographs featuring men at work and cityscapes,  when abruptly, “look, there’s the Starry Night”, exclaimed Dibyendu. I turned and looked: there inside a packed room, a crowd of buzzing men and women swarmed around  the other end, almost covering a frame like the guarding angels: specs of China blue and bright yellow peeking through the human silhouettes. All of a sudden, I could feel my ears getting warm in excitement and anticipation, but I managed to suppress my feelings and sputtered, “let me wait a while and gather myself up before stepping into the other room”. A minute or so later, I walked into the crowd. The entire room was abuzz with muffled voices, sheer amazement and excitement pouring in from all the directions. Once I was considerably near the end of the room that prized the possession, I could see men and women taking turns to click their photos with the art work. Couples, grandparents, extended families, you could see everyone posing so euphorically, their gleaming eyes and foamy white smiles, as if the wait of a few decades has finally gotten over, dreams have finally materialized, eyes ultimately satiated.

I stood there for almost three quarters of an hour. I took a closer look and made a few notes: the canvas had a yellow ochre priming before the scene was painted, and that the sky was painted before the Cyprus. At certain places, the strokes around the tree begin after a small gap. This reminded me of the painting of a Kingfisher bird in Van Gogh Museum where the bird was painted first and the background after the subject. The viewer is sure to not miss the detail there because of the museum recommended activity beside it which asked the viewers to notice the outline of the bird: a perfectly discernible brushstroke closely demarcated the bird from its surroundings, indicating that the painter wanted to hide the irregularities in the bird’s outer shape. (Van Gogh’s The Kingfisher can be viewed here -zoom in around the back of the bird to view the detail just mentioned above)

Suddenly, I noticed a child had come right in front of me. There she was, in a red woolen sweater, trying to hold a phone with her small hands, and click the photo of the paragon of artistry. I could see the joy in her posture, hopping she came and hopping she disappeared in the crowd. I managed to stoop low and click her from behind:

Starry Starry Night

Paint your palettes blue and grey

Look out on a summer’s day

With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on my 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 try to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now...

The song kept replaying in my mind in Don McLean’s voice. 

I looked around and Vincent’s impressionism was suddenly there everywhere. See for yourself:

Finally, I gathered some courage and decided to stand in the same frame as of the divine painting. I felt so little inside that room that I forgot to smile my best in front of the camera. However this isn’t new, I have posed in front of Van Gogh’s self portrait before, and my expressions have always betrayed me. So this time after Dibyendu showed me the click and asked me if I was happy, I let it go. I clicked their photo. And after some more clicks that strangers requested me to click on their phones (a man who was with another man, an old lady  who was with her friend, both likely being septuagenarians), we decided to go.  (For now!! Promised myself to come back soon!!)