Starry Night - 1889, one of Vincent Van Gogh's most renowned paintings. (click to enlarge)
The olives with white clouds and background of mountains, also the moonrise and the night effect, these are exaggerations from the point of view of arrangement, their lines are warped as that of old wood. ~Van Gogh
The painting was the inspiration for Don McLean's song Vincent, he wrote the lyrics in 1971 after reading a book about the life of the Van Gogh. A copy of the sheet music is in a safe beneath the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, along with a set of Van Gogh's paint brushes, the hat he wore while painting Starry Night, and various other items.
starry night
paint your palette blue and grey
look out on a summer's day
with eyes that know the
darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills
sketch the trees and the daffodils
catch the breeze and the winter chills
in colors on the snowy linen land.
And now I understand what you tried to say to me
how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they did not know how
perhaps they'll listen now.
Does this reminds you of another time in your life, perhaps a simpler or happier time? Or maybe a college assignment to analyze this composer's timeless thoughts?
the rest of the song's lyrics here
Starry Night is "Today's Featured Picture" on Wikipedia
