Art pieces can be open to many different interpretations. The majority of artwork does not have just one mean. Artists want the view to feel their own emotions about a piece of artwork. Artists that are considered impressionist follow this way of allowing the viewers to create their own image even more than an artist that is considered a realist. One artist that follows the form of an impressionist style is Vincent Van Gogh. In his piece "The Starry Night", he allows for cool colors and choppy strokes to set a calm mood to his entire piece.

The lines seen in The Starry Night are very short and considered very choppy, although Van Gogh piece is very smooth. He creates this smooth allusion by connecting all of his lines together. In addition he also uses curved lines to allow your eye to flow throughout the piece. By using these styles throughout the entire piece the work creates a very consistent style.

The choppy lines used create their own texture. Looking at the piece close up you can see how the paint overlaps stroke by stroke. Even if you are not looking at the piece in person you can still see this overlap with the different shades and tone of blues that are used along with the yellows that can be seen in the sky representing the stars.

The Starry Night is an abstract artwork. This means that the objects in the piece are hard to recognize or there are no objects to be seen at all. Although the piece does lean more towards the realistic end of abstract pieces because of the recognizable objects, it still is considered abstract because of the brushstrokes and the objects that are difficult to recognize at first glance.

The overall color scheme of this piece are cool colors. Blue is considered a cool color and the majority of the piece uses blue to create the landscape. There are accents of yellow, green, black and white seen in the piece as well. The color yellow is used to add a contrast to the piece and is used to represent the stars in the sky. The green is used to represent the ground and because yellow and blue make green, it sticks to the color scheme of the piece. The black and the white is used to create the highlights and lowlights of the piece. The also add depth to the entire landscape to create different grounds and to emphasis the texture in the piece. The final color blue is used to create the cool, calming tone. It also emphasizes the 'Night" aspect of The Starry Night.

There are three different forms of contrast that can be seen. These are emphasized in the color, the highlights/lowlights, and the foreground/background. The contrast in color is seen in the difference between the cool blue used in the majority of the piece and the accents of the warm yellow. This creates focal points for the eye to be drawn into. The contrasted created by the highlights/lowlights can been seen with the use of black and white. The majority of the white is seen in the sky to create a allusion of bright stars while the ground uses the majority of the black to create the feel of nighttime and to show the depression in the city. The highlights and lowlights lead into the contrast of the background and foreground. The background uses smooth lines that are view as very happy but still keep their calming feelings while the foreground uses more strait lines. The foreground also is darker than the background to create a more obvious contrast.

The form of the entire piece is much structuralized. The dark figure of the tree creates a very prominent structure of the piece that connect both the darkness of the city but the smooth lines of the sky. The tree can be considered the bridge of the two grounds. The sky creates the forms of the stars connecting them with the large swirls used to create more movement. The darker forms in the middle of the grounds create the hilltops in the background and the use of squares and rectangles create the entirety of the city.

The major symbols seen in this piece are the moon, stars, and the buildings. These prominent symbols work together to create the general mood of the piece and create the title The Starry Night. The moon and stars create the time of day in the piece while the building create the 'where' aspect so that the view knows where the piece is and can have a greater connection to the piece. The two major icons seen are the moon and the tallest building in the city. The tallest building can been recognized as a church to create a personality to the town.

The perspective of the piece is view from a hilltop. The giveaways to this are the hilltops seen in the background, the overlook of an entire city, and the large tree in the foreground. The tree is much lower than the viewer, allowing to create the height above the city.

The eye is drawn into 3 places, the tree, the city and hills, and the sky. The tree and colors used in the entire piece will draw the viewer's eye throughout the entire piece creating the overall movement and unity of the piece.

Vincent Van Gogh style of art creates the impressionist piece of artwork while still using major symbols to allow the viewer to create their own mood seen in the cool tones while still forcing the viewer to further inspect the piece to understand all aspects. 

