Much like their literary counterparts, visual texts often have a hidden message or meaning for the audience to interpret.  Using evidence from the visual text, it is possible for the audience to defend multiple different interpretations of the same text.  In other words, a member of the audience interprets the visual text by analyzing the visual elements of the image, such as color, form, and contrast.  The painting "Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh is one such example of how a visual text can be interpreted.  It can be argued that the coloration, shapes, and space used in "Starry Night" are used to convey a message of fascination with nature, particularly the night sky.

Coloration plays an extensive role in this interpretation for multiple reasons.  First of all, the brighter colors, specifically white, yellow, and orange, used to compose the "stars" and "moon" in the "sky" work with the lighter shades of blue to contrast the darker colors composing the "ground" and the objects around it.  This contrast between the lighter and darker colors results in how the focus is on the sky, which is the most eye-catching area of the picture despite the more defined shapes present towards the bottom of the image on the ground.  Additionally, the dark colors used to convey lighting, especially in the bottom region of the image, demonstrate that the visual text is showing a scene during the night, despite the brightness in the upper region of the image.  This contradiction in the lighting serves to further emphasize how the image is more surreal in nature, showing more how the author of the visual text thinks of the world rather than a realistic depiction of it.  On the other hand, while the surreal nature of the visual text is used to show how the author thinks of the world, it also creates an "otherworldly feeling" with how the image does not quite depict the actual world around us, further adding to the image's mysterious nature.  This mysterious nature leads to curiosity, aiding in the interpretation that the visual text expresses a fascination with its subject, the night sky.

The mysterious and otherworldly nature of this image that establishes the curiosity essential to the interpretation is created by shapes used in the image in addition to the coloration.  The organic, but out of place, light swirls and the unnaturally large stars in the sky create a natural and vaguely familiar, yet foreign and dream-like appearance that adds to that works with the coloration to further emphasize the sense of curiosity with the night sky and its stars.  Additionally, the image's perspective is close to the ground and orientated so that the viewer is looking upwards past a plant silhouetted against the night sky.  This causes the organic design of the plant's silhouette to dominate a large portion of the upper region of the visual text and thus become a critical part of the image, which emphasizes its role in the interpretation as well.  One of these interpretations of the plant's role in the painting can focus on the plant's organic nature and its dark coloration, which serves to amplify the mysterious aspects of nature in the interpretation.  The latter of which works by obscuring a large number of details and, consequently, enhancing the readers' curiosity.  Basically, the slightly out of place organic shapes in the area where the focus lies and the unrealistic size of some of these shapes, due to perspective in the case of the plant, gives the visual text an organic but alien tone, that taps into the natural curiosity possessed by many humans, thus leading to the possible interpretation that this curiosity with the night sky is a message of the visual text itself.

The placement of the shapes in the image, in other words how they are arranged in the space of the image, also can be used as evidence that the image conveys a message indicating the artist's fascination with nature and the night sky.  As previously discussed, the image has a perspective where the viewer is looking up at the night sky, causing the natural subjects of the plant and the night sky to dominate the majority of the picture, specifically the upper areas with only the very bottom of the image showing the ground and the unnatural subject of the small rural village.  This means that the night sky, with the bright colors that already draw the viewer's eyes, also dominates the space of the image and is located in a higher position in the image to further draw the viewer's attention, showing how important of a subject it is.  Additionally, the plant in the image is outlined by the lighter colors of the night sky and is a large object that extends into the upper region of the image.  Consequently, the areas that draw the most attention are both meant to represent natural subjects, with a special focus on the night sky that takes up most of the space on the image.  The fact that space is used to further enhance how these two subjects are focused on in the image means their interpretations play a critical role in the interpretation of the entire work.  Therefore, since the plant and sky can convey a fascination with the night sky, it can be concluded that the entire image can convey and even amplify this interpretation.

In conclusion, it can be argued that the coloration, shapes, and space used in "Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh are used to convey a message of fascination with nature, particularly the night sky.  The lighter coloration of the night sky and the stars in it, along with the surreal organic shapes used in its design, help establish it as the focus of the image.  The organic design of the plant that also, due to perspective occupies a large amount of space in the image further emphasizes the importance of the subject of nature in the image.  The subject of nature, when coupled with the surreal nature of the night sky, leads to a mysterious tone that encourages natural human curiosity.  Ultimately, this all can be interpreted as a message detailing van Gogh's curiosity with the mysterious natural world, especially the night sky and the stars that reside in it.

