Starry Night was painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1889. Although it is just a painting of a village under the night sky, simply looking at it elevates it to another level. Van Gogh uses a flowing style of painting to emphasize nature in particular. At first glance you notice a tree erupting like a great flame into the dark sky, rising higher and higher almost touching the zenith. Next, the mountains far off, which are a darker blue than the sky. You can see them almost towering over the peaceful town like large tidal waves, threatening to engulf all in their path. Then there is the sky itself, swishing and whirling about in an exuberant rush. The stars are like large vortexes, emitting radiant light and pulsating with the rest of nature. The sky around it ebbs and flows around these balls of light in great rushes. In stark contrast to all of this is the town itself, stationary and rigid, within each window you can see a light burning signaling people settling down for the night, completely oblivious to the great commotion of nature.
After looking at this painting for some time, you will notice how Van Gogh wanted to depict nature. There is a certain cyclical aspect to nature which contrasts the uniform forms that we humans have built around ourselves. While we have fixed schedules where days have defined beginning and ends, nature has no such constraints, it is constantly in motion. We can observe it if only we take time off our busy schedules to observe it more, even if that just means a short walk through a park. By observing nature more we can be humbled by its immensity and thereby take solace in realizing how little our everyday problems matter in the grand scheme of things.
