This is an iconic painting by Vincent
Van Gogh. It's called Starry Night
it's a great loan from the Musee d'Orsay, an incredibly generous loan
it's a work which speaks
to Van Gogh's fascination with
Jean-Francois Millet.
He often referenced Millet in his
correspondence, described him as being
Father Millet
This particular work speaks to his
interest in Millet's moonlight scenes
here is a view of the night sky at
Arles, a town in the south of France where
he spent several
months so there's a view across the
river Rhone, it's a kind of a view
where
where Van Gogh is speaking both to
his interest in artificial light
and natural light so you can see the the
night sky here, this is actually the
Big Dipper
you get this wonderful sense of you know
the view across the river
the carefully represented stars i mean
the paintwork is key here also these slabs of paint
that Van Gogh uses, these very kind of
three-dimensional almost kind of globs
of paint that he uses to represent
the light across the river at all
This was a painting that Van Gogh talked about a lot in his
correspondence he called it Starry Night, 
La Nuit étoilée, and arguably for him you could say
that it is more
significant than the work that is better
known at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York
