Vincent van Gogh: The Starry Night

This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big, wrote van Gogh to his brother Theo, describing his inspiration for one of his best-known paintings, The Starry Night. This mid-scale, oil-on-canvas painting is dominated by a moon- and star-filled night sky. It takes up three-quarters of the picture plane and appears turbulent, even agitated, with intensely swirling patterns that seem to roll across its surface like waves. It is pocked with bright orbs surrounded by concentric circles of radiant white and yellow light. This masterpiece is located in the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) in Manhattan, NYC.