The Starry Night original is an oil on canvas by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Romy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an idealized village. It has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City since 1941. It is regarded as among Van Gogh's finest works, The Starry Night is one of the most recognized paintings in the history of Western culture. A true classic for sure. Reproduced from ultra-high-resolution digital scans, printed using archival quality printers and inks onto a heavy cotton-poly canvas, using no optical brighteners (which are cheaper, but fade), we achieve a truly remarkable representation of this amazing artwork. Although The Starry Night was painted during the day in Van Gogh's ground-floor studio, it would be inaccurate to state that the picture was painted from memory. The view has been identified as the one from his bedroom window, facing east, a view which Van Gogh painted variations of no fewer than twenty-one times, including The Starry Night. "Through the iron-barred window, " he wrote to his brother, theo, around May 23, 1889, "I can see an enclosed square of wheat... Above which, in the morning, i watch the sunrise in all its glory. Van Gogh depicted the view at different times of the day and under various weather conditions, including sunrise, moonrise, sunshine-filled days, overcast days, windy days, and one day with rain. While the hospital staff did not allow Van Gogh to paint in his bedroom, he was able there to make sketches in ink or charcoal on paper; eventually, he would base newer variations on previous versions. The pictorial element uniting all of these paintings is the diagonal line coming in from the right depicting the low rolling hills of the Alpilles Mountains. In fifteen of the twenty-one versions, cypress trees are visible beyond the far wall enclosing the wheat field. Van Gogh telescoped the view in six of these paintings, most notably in a Wheat Field with Cypresses and "The Starry Night", bringing the trees closer to the picture plane. This piece is relevant and historic and has a very interesting story that crosses generations.
