Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist who emerged as one of the most famous figures in the history of Western art after his death. In only a decade, Van Gogh created a prolific body of more than 2,000 works of art.
Van Gogh’s night sky is a field of roiling energy. Below the exploding stars, the village is a place of quiet order. Connecting earth and sky is the flamelike cypress, a tree traditionally associated with graveyards and mourning. But death was not ominous for van Gogh. “Looking at the stars always makes me dream,” he said, “Why, I ask myself, shouldn’t the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star.”