[TONES] [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Yeah, you
know this picture. You can probably name
its creator and at least one detail about his life. And I bet you know
the title, too. I mean, heck, you might
have even done the puzzle. It depicts some trees, a town,
and, of course, a night sky, something we've all seen
in one form or another. So what's so special about it? Is it the image itself that
enchants us, the thickly applied whorls of paint? Or is it the story of the
tortured artist behind it? Let's better know
"The Starry Night." When Vincent van Gogh-- and, yes, I'm going to try
to say my own botched version of his Dutch name-- painted the picture
in June of 1889, rapid industrial
development was underway in much of Western
Europe and the world. Railroads made travel
easier than ever. Karl Benz had begun to sell the
first commercially available motor wagon. The first skyscrapers
were going up. The Moulin Rouge opened
that year in Paris, along with that kind of famous
structure, the Eiffel Tower, marking the entrance to
that year's World's Fair. Charlie Chaplin
was born in 1889, followed four days
later by Adolf Hitler. That year, Mark Twain
published "A Yankee in King Arthur's Court." Nellie Bly circumnavigated
the globe in 72 days. And Chef Raffaele Esposito
invented the Pizza Margherita. In the wider world of art,
Impressionism was out. The more methodical,
scientifically rigorous Neo-Impressionism was in. And Cezanne and the
artists who would later be called Post-Impressionists
were bubbling up. Rather than making new optical
impressions of the world, like the Impressionists,
these artists were more interested
in expressing their emotional and
psychological impressions through style, symbol,
and bold use of color. Our man Vincent was among them. Born in the Netherlands in
1853, he bounced around Europe throughout his
teens and early 20s until returning home
in 1880, committed to becoming a great painter. His surroundings became
his subject matter, developing his skills as
a draftsman and painter, using a mostly dark
palette to document rural landscapes, still
lifes, and Dutch peasants. He moved around Europe and
eventually made his way to Paris in 1886. There, he encountered
and metabolized the work of the Impressionists
and collected Japanese prints. We can see his brushwork
loosen and palette brighten. But he found the city frantic,
overwhelming, and cold, and decided to move
south to Arles, where he embraced what he
thought of as a more purer subject matter-- the countryside, more
still lifes, a small town, and its residents, who
became his friends. He depicted the changing
seasons with an increasingly acute and intense
attention to color. Vincent corresponded frequently
with his younger brother Theo, who supported him both
financially and emotionally. In his letters, Vincent
sensitively and eloquently shares thoughts about art, life,
and his unrelenting struggle with his mental health. On April 9, 1888,
he wrote to Theo, "I must also have a starry
night with cypresses, or perhaps above all a field of ripe corn;
there are some wonderful nights here." That summer, he painted
several night scenes, which he found to be, quote,
"much more alive and richly colored than the
day," a gaslit interior of Cafe de la Gare, a
portrait of his friend Eugene against a starry
sky, and the banks of the River at night. Night was not a new
preoccupation for painters. And van Gogh was certainly aware
of his contemporaries' efforts. While productive, he longed
for contact with other artists. So Theo arranged
for Paul Gauguin, who had been
painting in Brittany, to come his way in October
of '88 for artistic exchange and to be Vincent's roomie. But it didn't last long. The two disagreed. And by the end of
December, Gaughin was gone, and Vincent suffered
a psychological crisis that involved his infamous
mutilation of his own ear. In 1889, he entered himself
into an asylum at Saint-Rémy, situated at the foot of
the Alpilles Mountains. And it's here that he painted
our picture in question, one of many he made of the
landscape that surrounded him. He wrote to Theo, "This
morning, I saw the countryside from my window a long
time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning
star, which looked very big." Now, there are a number of ways
this picture is not accurate. He couldn't see the
town from his window. And even if he
could, the steeple didn't look like
the one he painted, which bears closer
resemblance to the steeples of his native Holland. The morning star
is probably Venus, which he could have seen. But at the time, the
moon was unlikely to have been a crescent but
instead a waning gibbous. The dramatic swirling
patterns in the sky, which dominate the canvas,
do kinda, sorta match then-published observations
of spiral nebulae or galaxies. But they wouldn't have
been visible to him. Some studies claim the swirling
sky and radiating stars demonstrate luminance,
with scaling similar to that of the
mathematical theory of turbulence. Some have even
linked this depiction of physical
turbulence with times of psychological
turbulence for van Gogh. But other theorists
convincingly speculate the swirls represent-- wait for it-- wind,
clouds propelled by the mistral, the strong
northwesterly wind of Provence that the artist wrote of. Accuracy is not the point. The picture is based on
observation and memories of places but is
driven by emotion. The sky is painted wet
on wet, executed quickly and confidently. The composition is
superbly balanced. The vertical of the
cypresses and steeple counteract the
horizontal of the town and stabilize the diagonal of
the tumbling mountain range. The town is still, emphasizing
the dramatic action everywhere else. The hills are rolling. The cypresses
flicker like flames. And the sky is in
spectacular motion. There are many
interpretations of this piece. Cypress are often associated
with the afterlife, a bridge between the Earth and Heaven. And Vincent wouldn't live
much more than a year after the painting's
creation, dying by suicide in July of 1890. Some see the painting as
inspired by a religious mood or achieved in a
state of heightened reality or great agitation. But the evidence
doesn't show this. He had written of the vast peace
and majesty of the night sky, in fact. And wrote, "The sight of the
stars always makes me dream." Theo didn't love
the piece and wrote, "I think that the
search for some style is prejudicial to the
true sentiment of things." But it's style that Vincent
was desperately seeking, which he had committed to
discovering for himself. Back in 1874, he
wrote to his brother, "Painters understand nature and
love it, and teach us to see." With "Starry Night,"
van Gogh does just that. He teaches us to see the sky,
not as it looks but perhaps as it feels. This image is universal
in that we've all looked out on a night sky. But never have we seen
it quite like this. In a career that
lasted only a decade, van Gogh articulated a
style that we can't forget, that continues to draw
crowds and captivate us. "The Starry Night"
inspired Don McLean in 1971 to write a song about its
misunderstood creator, never appreciated during
his lifetime, which was played on repeat in 1996
in Tupac Shakur's hospital room as he died. Vincent's life story
has been adapted to film on a number of occasions,
including the recent "Loving Vincent," a fully painted,
animated film that brings "The Starry Night,"
among other works, to life. But "The Starry Night stands
for much more than the search for recognition or immortality. With this work, we feel
our smallness standing on the Earth and the hugeness
that lies above and beyond. We feel the striving
and the desire to share with others the world,
not as it is but as we see it. If you're interested in better
knowing the why behind things we encounter every day, then
check out the new series "Origin of Everything,"
from PBS Digital Studios. It explores the unfamiliar
history behind familiar ideas and objects, from where the
hashtag came from to why we get grades in school. I found the episode on why
women give birth lying down to be particularly
interesting and kind of wish I'd watched it
before giving birth to two children lying down. This episode is supported
in part by viewers like you through Patreon. Special thanks to
our Grand Master of the Arts, Indianapolis
Homes Reality. If you'd like to
support the channel, go to patreon.com/artassignment. [MUSIC PLAYING]
I loved this.