Art History Essay: Impressionism Sunrise and Starry Night Comparison

This essay delves into the realm of art history, offering a comparative analysis of two iconic art movements: Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. The essay focuses on two masterpieces: Claude Monet's 'Impressionism Sunrise' and Vincent Van Gogh's 'The Starry Night.' It explores the defining c...Read More

Running head: ART HISTORY
Art History
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ART HISTORY
Impressionist art is a style of art where the image of a particular object is one that is
captured by the artist in a manner that gives the impression that one is simply acquiring a
glimpse of the object rather than getting to see the object in full. The pictures with respect to
impressionist art are those that are painted using a great deal of color, with most of these pictures
or paintings being located in an outdoor setting. 1The impressionist art pictures are those where
the images are very large and vibrant. With respect to post impressionism one can say that the
range and extent of style made use of artists is something that appears to be quite diverse, and
there are various art styles like the pictorial style, the primitivism style and the synthetism style
that are seen to form a crucial part of such paintings.2 This assignment engages in a comparison
of Claude Monet’s Impressionism Sunrise as composed in 1872 with The Starry Night by
Vincent Van Gogh.
In Impressionism Sunrise, what is depicted by the artist is the Port of Le Havre, with the
latter being the artists hometown. As many as six different canvases have been used by the artist
to depict the port, at dawn, at dusk and in the afternoon. The viewpoints that are offered in each
and every one of these paintings are also those that are seen to vary from one particular painting
1 Akella, Aneesh. "Modern Art Rendering." University of California, Berkeley (2017).
2 Ibid

2ART HISTORY
to another.3 The port can be viewed from the water itself and it can also be viewed from the hotel
room that overlooks this port. As is the case with impressionist art work, the painter has made
use of vibrant shades and art styles in order to create the painting. The sun is painted in a bright
orange color while subtle shades of blue and grey have been used by the artist to depict the
water. The painting is one that comes across as quite hazy for the most part, and in his defense
what the artist stated when asked about the haziness of the painting is that it is not supposed to
give the viewer an exact idea of what the port looks like but rather it is supposed to provide the
viewer with an impression of the same. Impressionism Sunrise can thus be considered to be a
landmark piece of impressionist art work. All the typical styles and traits of impressionist art,
such as the use of vibrant and bold colors and large sized images have been made use of in this
painting and it is one of Claude Monet’s most famous works. At first view, what a person gets to
see is the Port Le Havre on a lazy morning, with the sun going up in the sky and with the boats
out in the water.4 A relaxed and tranquil impression is conveyed as part of this particular
painting. It is soothing to the eyes and one can see exactly what is what because of the vivid
imagery that has been used in the painting. The water is crystal blue and grey in color, the boats
are painted in pencil shades and the sun is a bright red orange ball in the sky. The hazy image
that comes with the painting is the fact that it is an impression and not a photo image of the Le
Havre Port. An impression is supposed to give viewers an approximate but not exact idea of a
subject matter, and it is an impression that the painter has been able to successfully create in this
work of art. 5
3 Graddy, Kathryn, and Jonathan Hamilton. "Auction guarantees for works of art." Journal of Economic Behavior &
Organization (2017).
4 Ibid
5 Ibid

3ART HISTORY
The Starry Night is a post-impressionist painting that has been composed by the Dutch
Painter Vincent Van Gogh. The Starry Night portrays the sky at different times of the day and
also in different types of weather conditions including sun-filled days, moonrise, sunrise, windy
days, overcast days, as well as days with rain. Although it seems like the painting was conceived
by the painter while sitting under the sky, it was actually composed in the studio of the artist
from where he had but a limited view of the sky. As is the case with post-impressionist paintings
it is a subtle sense of style that has been deployed by the painter as this subtleness is evident in
the shades or colors that have been used in the painting. Light and dark combinations of the color
blue have been used to designate the night sky and subtle shades of yellow have been used by the
painter to indicate the stars. A tranquil and peaceful look and feeling can be detected in this
painting much in the same way that it can be detected in Impressionism Sunrise by Claude
Monet.6
The pictorial elements of this particular painting are those that have been asserted by the
artist in symbolic form, and it has been noted that the cypress in the painting alludes to the tree of
6 Llorente, Maria, Francisco C. Parra, and Marsden McGuire. "Productive Aging and Creativity: The Lives and Art
of Georgia O'keefe, Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet." The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 25, no. 3
(2017): S6.

4ART HISTORY
death for which the Mediterranean region is known. The Starry Night is a beautiful painting to
say the least and it is not abstract and ambiguous in character, with the elements of the painting
come across quite easily and vividly to the beholders. Upon looking at the painting the viewer
can easily understand what the essence of the painting is about and does not have to contemplate
long and hard in order to arrive at an understanding of the same. The Starry Night is a perfect
example of post-impressionist style of painting by virtue of the fact that it is highly subtle colors
and shades that are made use of by the painter to create this piece of work, and the fact that there
are so many versions of the night sky available as far as this particular painting is concerned,
goes to show that it is a diverse range of style that has been followed by the painter for
composing this work. This diverse range of styles is quite common to the post-impressionist
style in general, with The Starry Night not being an exception in this respect. 7
Thus, both the Impressionism Sunrise by Claude Money and Starry Night by Vincent
Van Gogh are beautiful pieces of work that are exclusive to the impressionist school of art and
the post-impressionist school of art. The former is characterized by bold and vibrant shades and
there is a lot of color that is used in the painting in order to convey the meaning of the painting in
clear and no uncertain terms to the viewers of the painting. The Starry Night on the other hand is
a typical and well-suited example of the post-impressionist style of painting, that is, a painting
which is characterized by subtle shades and where the image or the content of the painting is one
that comes across as quite subtle and tranquil more than anything else. The diverse types of
starry night sky that have been portrayed by Vincent Van Gogh in the painting, The Starry Night,
show how typically post-impressionist it is in character, with the diversity of style being one of
the key elements of the post-impressionist school of art.
7 Van Gogh, Elisabeth Duquesne. Personal Recollections of Vincent Van Gogh. Courier Dover Publications, 2017.

5ART HISTORY
References
Akella, Aneesh. "Modern Art Rendering." University of California, Berkeley (2017).
Graddy, Kathryn, and Jonathan Hamilton. "Auction guarantees for works of art." Journal of
Economic Behavior & Organization (2017).
Llorente, Maria, Francisco C. Parra, and Marsden McGuire. "Productive Aging and Creativity:
The Lives and Art of Georgia O'keefe, Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet." The American Journal
of Geriatric Psychiatry 25, no. 3 (2017): S6.
Van Gogh, Elisabeth Duquesne. Personal Recollections of Vincent Van Gogh. Courier Dover
Publications, 2017.
Van Gogh-Bonger, Jo, and Martin Gayford. A Memoir of Vincent Van Gogh. Getty Publications,
2018.