Starry Night over the Rhone

Van Gogh painted this view of the Rhone at night in September 1888, standing on the riverbank a few minutes' walk from the Yellow House in Arles where he was living. The gas lamps of Arles glow in the distance, reflected in the water as twin streaks of gold. The canvas is roughly 29 by 36 inches, wider than it is tall. The night sky occupies the upper two-thirds, deep blue with scattered stars that burn as bright, concentric circles of yellow-white. Below, the Rhone fills the middle ground, dark except where the gas lights throw their reflections across the current. A couple walks along the bank in the lower left, barely visible, two small dark figures against the shimmering water. Van Gogh had been in Arles since February 1888, trying to establish an artist's colony with Gauguin. He was sleeping poorly and painting at a furious pace, sometimes three canvases in a single day. He wrote to Theo about this painting in late September, describing how he went down to the river at night to look at the stars and the lamps. He had recently finished The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum and The Starry Night over the Rhone within days of each other, both night scenes painted on the spot in the dark. This is not the Starry Night that hangs in MoMA. That one was painted a year later at the asylum in Saint-Remy, from memory and imagination. This one was painted outdoors, from direct observation, before the breakdown that sent him to the hospital. The brushwork is calmer here, the sky less turbulent, the stars less apocalyptic. Oil on canvas, 72 by 92 centimeters. Van Gogh used short, directional strokes for the water reflections, layering ultramarine and cobalt over darker blues. The stars are built up in thick dots of lead white and zinc yellow, applied with a loaded brush. The paint in the sky is thinner than in the MoMA version, laid on in smooth horizontal bands rather than swirling eddies. The deep blues and warm golds make this print work well in a bedroom or a dining room, where the night scene can be appreciated in low light. The horizontal format suits a wide wall space above a bed or a sideboard. The 16x20 or 18x24 framed version in a dark wood frame picks up the painting's nighttime palette. The painting is in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, acquired in 1986 when the museum opened. It is one of the most reproduced of Van Gogh's Arles paintings. This is a public domain artwork. The original painting is at the Musée d'Orsay. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 18x24 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.