IDENTITY
Letter 691 — Starry Night over the Rhône: colour and night painting
Arles, 1888
Content Summary
On 29 September 1888 at Arles, Van Gogh describes Starry Night over the Rhône in detail: a green-blue sky, royal-blue water, mauve ground, blue-violet town, yellow gaslight, red-gold to green-bronze reflections and a green-and-pink Great Bear, while also noting that the work was painted at night.
CONTEXT
Topics
Artwork Documentation, Colour, Observed colour description, painting at night, letter sketch, green-blue sky, royal-blue water, mauve land, blue-violet town, yellow gaslight, red-gold to green-bronze reflections, green/pink Great Bear
Materials & Pigments
Related People
Vincent van Gogh, Mauve
Paintings
Starry Night over the Rhône (F474 / JH1592)
RESEARCH
Quotation
Research Focus
The letter is the principal first-hand documentary account of Starry Night over the Rhône, preserving Van Gogh’s own description of its colour relationships, night-working conditions and compositional conception.
Related Work / Relevance
Direct
SOURCES & EVIDENCE
Source Type
Letter
Source
Source Edition
Vincent van Gogh — The Letters, scholarly online edition (Van Gogh Museum / Huygens ING)
Source URL
Evidence Type
Primary Source, Scholarly Annotation
Related Readings