Painting by night

摘要

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night, an exquisite exhibition now on show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, explores this artists fascination with portraying the night. Unlike earlier artists who painted night scenes by day from memory, Vincent van Gogh painted his nocturnal scenes on the spot, using gaslight and colour in innovative ways to depict sunset and starlight in luminous yellow tones. As the exhibition's curator Joachim Pissarro explains, van Gogh was the first artist "to blend together gaslight - artificial, urban light - with starry light in a painting". Both lights blaze with "the same kind of buzzing, bursting of energy, a kind of weird kinship".