The Starry Night – Vincent van Gogh (1889)

Painted in 1889 while Vincent van Gogh was staying at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, southern France, The Starry Night is inspired by the view from his window. However, Van Gogh did not paint it directly from life. He observed the landscape during the day and recreated it at night from memory, emotion, and imagination.

The village in the painting is partly fictional—Saint-Rémy didn’t actually look like this. Van Gogh added elements from his native Netherlands, including the church steeple, blending different places into one dreamlike scene. The dramatic, swirling sky contrasts with the calm village below, suggesting a tension between inner chaos and external stillness.

The large cypress tree in the foreground was a common sight in Provence and traditionally symbolized death and eternity. Van Gogh loved their dark, flame-like shapes, using the tree here to connect the earth with the restless sky. Today, the painting is housed at MoMA in New York, where it remains one of the most admired works in modern art—and a striking piece to display on a Samsung Frame TV.