[MUSIC PLAYING]
NATE: We're here at the
Museum of Modern Art,
one of my favorite art museums.
We're going to get a chance
to see some of the most
famous works of art.
Let's get inside
and get started.
Follow me.
This episode is funded by The
Glick Fund and the Christel
DeHaan Family
Foundation, who inspire
philanthropy and creativity.
We are here with
Larissa Bailiff.
Thank you so much for your
time, for coming out here
to talk to us about-- and
your title here at the MoMA
would be?
 I'm an educator, Nate.
 And I love educators,
so this is fantastic.
So, thanks so much.
Talking about this, I mean,
I think I know this painting,
right?
This is Starry Night, so yeah.
So can you tell us a little
bit about just what you
know about it?
Especially how it got into
the museum and the time frame
and-- yeah, just let
me know about it.
 Well, it's a work from
the late 19th century.
It was painted in 1889
by Vincent van Gogh.
And we'll talk more about him.
In terms of coming
into the museum,
it was a gift from one
of our three founders.
And we were founded
by three women.
And she gave this to
us, I believe, in 1941.
NATE: I mean, where was he
at when he painted this?
What was going on?
 Sure, absolutely.
He painted this when he
was in Saint Remy, France.
And it's painted at
the hospital where
he put himself to take care
of himself and recuperate.
And he had two rooms there.
And he could look
outside the windows.
He could walk the grounds.
And so, it is essentially what
he might have seen looking out
one of those windows.
But of course, he's done
many different things
to it, combined art
history, his emotions.
And that's what
makes it so special.
NATE: Where did he get the
influence of just wanting
to do so much with nature?
 In terms of nature,
that's something
that he loved from the get go.
And he talks about
it in his letters
to Theo, memories of
walking around and finding
different little animals and
studying nature and plants
and sketching them
from a very early time.
 One thing that we get to see
when we're here is texture.
And the other is the
incredible amount
of color, which is amazing.
Do you know where he got
some of these influences
and what pressed him to
want to use so much paint?
 I think that's one of the most
amazing things about Vincent
van Gogh.
Because he tried
on different styles
and was exposed to a
lot of art history,
but he really settled upon
this-- what we kind of call--
parallel brushwork.
Although there's nothing
really parallel about it.
It's moving and undulating.
But very, very thickly
encrusted, a lot of impasto,
a lot of paint on the surface.
And it seems to
have been something
that allowed him to
really express himself,
to really pour himself
into the paint.
And that texture, I mean it's
almost haptic and touchable.
And yet, in places, we
can see the bare canvas.
So it's not completely covered.
It's where he's moved to
paint and express himself.
In terms of the colors, I mean,
they're bright and vibrant.
And a lot of that comes
out of just having
been in Paris, living with
his brother in 1886 to 1888.
He was exposed to
Impressionism and what
the new artists were doing and
using vibrant paint colors.
One thing that they
were very influenced by
were Japanese woodblock prints
with wide swatches of color.
And I think that that
comes across in here,
that it's not boring colors.
It's not staid.
And it's not even a
night sky that's so dark
that we can't see anything.
It's ablaze with blues and
complimentary orange-yellows.
And there's color
all throughout.
There's not just one single
sense of blue, yellow, white.
 Now, you've told
me a little bit--
maybe math or science behind
the way the sky looks?
 Sure.
So just to say
this has been such
a fascinating and
compelling work of art
that all kinds of different
people have analyzed it,
from psychologists
to astronomers.
And more recently,
mathematicians and people
involved in physics
have really begun
to think about how
van Gogh may have
had his finger on the pulse.
The pulse of light,
for instance.
And that somehow he was able
to convey or to translate
really complicated concepts,
like the concept of turbulence.
 So we know that
he's made thousands
of paintings and hundreds
and hundreds of sketches.
So why is-- I mean,
this is iconic.
I would argue probably one
of the most popular paintings
in the world.
Why was it--
I mean, he wasn't popular.
He couldn't sell them.
So how did-- what changed?
What happened?
 I mean, he only sold one
painting in his lifetime.
And that was to a
friend's sister,
who appreciated his work.
And people really
misunderstood him.
But as you said, he
was extremely prolific,
putting his ideas
out there in letters
and sketches and paintings.
But to why this
is so compelling--
and in fact, he didn't
consider it a masterpiece
as we do today.
But I think people are drawn
to it for all different kinds
of reasons.
Partially because we understand
more about his life now
and we know that this was
a really difficult time
to be in an asylum.
A vulnerable time, where
he's expressing his emotions.
But also, the compelling night
sky that fills up almost all
of the composition
and draws us in again
with this brushwork that
is just and undulating.
And so different from what
any painter was creating
at the time, when surfaces
were really polished
and we were supposed to
understand the meaning
and it was clear cut,
a narrative, a story.
That's what you were
supposed to get.
Or to understand that it's
a direct transcript of what
you see outside.
And he is able to blend--
I would say magically
or mystically--
this amazing picture for us.
 Here he is at his lowest
point almost humanly possible,
making his greatest work.
But is there any kind
of religious connotation
with being at church?
I don't know if there's
any symbolism there.
 Absolutely.
So, you know, there are so many
things going on in this work
that we could look
to and think about,
in relation to his own
experience and his own life.
So he was a very religious
person, felt very spiritual.
And we do have a church there.
But interestingly, this is not
what a church in Saint Remy
would have looked like.
In fact, the church that he
would have seen or encountered
had a dome.
And this has a steeple.
And yet, it's in the center
bottom of the picture,
so it has importance there.
He puts it in.
And many people think that
it's a memory of the parsonage
that his father ran when
van Gogh was growing up.
So again, he comes from a
very spiritual background.
But he has to interpret
that for himself.
Van Gogh, with his love of
nature, came to, I think,
believe that there is
spirituality in everything,
every blade of grass.
And I bring that up
because he's reading
Walt Whitman and
many other writers
and poets in many
different languages.
But religion is
there, imbued in--
or faith, I should say.
Spirituality in all aspects of
this, in the beauty of things.
Since we're looking at the stars
and it's called Starry Night,
I just wanted to point close
to particularly this star
here, which seems to be one
of the most important for him.
And he believed it
was the morning star.
We can tell-- not from
the naked eye, per se,
although if you
look really close,
you'll see a lot of canvas--
that he painted the blue
and left blank canvas.
And then painted the
bright colors of the star
and moved out and out.
 Wow, yeah.
That's one thing I love
about being at the museum.
I mean, I can see the book
and sort of-- but now, I
could come at this angle and
really see what you're saying,
how he applied the
different layers.
 Absolutely.
 Well, thank you so
much for your time.
This is amazing, to get a few
glimpses of what this work did.
 Thanks, Nate.
It's my pleasure and one
of my favorite paintings
the Museum of Modern Art.
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