Beauty and Emotion

Famous art by infamous artists tend to be the subject of more than average criticism or

reverence and enthusiasm. The two paintings, Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and Music-

Pink and Blue II by Georgia O’Keeffe are common images the world round and are not immune

to becoming unexceptional due to their familiarity. They can be found in museum gift shops,

college dorm rooms, textbook covers, and doctor’s offices. The two pieces come from very

different artists and very different modern art movements, but there is similarity as well.

The first piece, by Van Gogh, is an image of the stars in the sky over a village near the

mental hospital where he was staying. Literally this is a portrayal of nature as seen through the

artist’s eyes, his response to how the sky made him feel is what makes this piece so charged with

emotion. In an opposite direction O’Keeffe has painted an abstract piece that then depicts nature

in a very compelling way. She uses pastel blues and pinks in a harmonious construction that then

becomes either a flower or a sexually charged image (Arnason, p.381). The contrast is in their

motive. Van Gogh was intrinsically an emotional expressionist, while O’Keeffe was striving to

be a non-objective modernist exploring nature as well. Their connection is through their

powerful poignant response and the overall theme of nature.

The purpose of both of these pieces could not be more different. Van Gogh was striving

to meet a spiritual theological need; he believed painting nature would get him closer to God.

The Starry Night embodies an inner, subjective expression of van Gogh's response to nature and

therefore God. Van Gogh forced you to see the world through his eyes, and he believed he was

doing God’s work. The purpose of O’Keeffe’s art was to maintain objectivity and irrefutably

give the world raw aesthetic beauty. There is also a depth to her work that suggests higher

purpose, which can be determined by the critical observer, but essentially it was created to be
pretty and undeniably feminine. Her art was pleasing, but with an air of confidence. Both artists

had distinctly different purposes and intentions, Van Gogh with his spiritual hunger and

O’Keeffe with her feminine creativity.

Starry Night and Music- Pink and Blue II are both beautiful works, created with oil on

canvas. Starry Night is made by thick hurried brush strokes, creating an urgency and exultation

comparable to fireworks in the night sky. The stars appear somewhat ominous over the small

sleepy village, and yet exciting and divine. The paint is thick as are the brush strokes, yet there is

a luminance that captures the viewer and brightens the whole composition. Most of the colors are

deep blues and grays, except for the dazzling yellow stars exploding in the sky. In contrast

Music- Pink and Blue II is a soft, elegant abstraction. The piece of art appears to be one of

O’Keeffe’s famous watercolors, graceful and fluid. The pinks and blues are adjoined with white

shining through and flowing in a very natural way. The colors are sensual in a highly

complementary distinction between light and dark, yet there is no feeling of actual darkness.

Your eyes are drawn to the many layers, folds, ridges and what appear to be petals due to the

magnificent colors and their well-balanced, almost musical, presentation. The styles of both of

these artworks are distinctive, yet they both create light in a moving and emotive brilliance.

The formal composition of the two pieces is reflective of their general, unique style. The

colors, brush strokes and style previously discussed are not solely indicative of how their formal

composition is relative to their philosophy. Van Gogh gives a whole scene and view into his

world, there is landscape, trees, houses, and most vividly the night sky. O’Keeffe paints an image

that takes over the whole canvas and focuses the eye more directly to a close up of another world

entirely. These two viewpoints are both essentially the viewpoints of the art movement they

derived from, or in Van Gogh’s case, invented. The expressionists used formal composition to
take the viewer into their minds, heart and soul. His painting meticulously presented his opinion

on where he, as an individual, was in his life and the demons and madness he was struggling to

overcome. O’Keeffe was a huge part of the American abstract modernists, differing from many

of the pioneers because she was a woman. The formal composition in her work is much harder to

grasp because of her ambiguity. The art was meant to evoke feeling, just as The Starry Night, but

not as a meticulous view into her world, rather as a feeling that could become your own personal

emotion. These two goals are clearly seen through the way the two works are formally

composed.

In order for art to be important, it must be memorable, but it also must be significant. The

significance lies in what the artist says through their art about themselves, the world, history,

politics or change. Often it is originality and new perspectives that make the artist and their

philosophy a cause for further examination. Further examination of The Starry Night and Music-

Pink and Blue II leads to understanding the potential worldviews belonging to the artists, but in

all actuality the truth is known only by the artist at the time of the painting. The Starry Night will

always be Van Gogh’s emotional response to nature and an attempt to reveal God through his

paintings. Van Gogh aimed to paint exactly what he saw, exactly as he imagined and felt it,

through emotional accuracy. In the process he painted incredibly visually pleasing masterpieces.

O’Keeffe was capturing nature through her own philosophy, by trying to paint “the

unexplainable thing in nature” (Wolk, p. 1) by immersing herself in nature. Her philosophy

created art that was deliberately more objective than Van Gogh and his expression of self.

In conclusion, both works of art lucidly give us a picture of the beauty in nature. They

created their final pieces from completely different methods. Van Gogh created Starry Night

through emotion and stylization; O’Keeffe painted Music- Pink and Blue II through a conscious
selection, elimination and emphasis. In the end they are more than a poster on a wall, or the

screen saver on a computer, they are timeless masterpieces that invoke emotion and provide

aesthetic pleasure.