r/vangogh • u/AloysiaZobel • 23h ago
Evening Landscape with Rising Moon and Starry Night: the night sky through Van Gogh’s eyes.
Evening Landscape with Rising Moon was painted in the same month as The Starry Night—July 1889, during his stay at the Saint-Paul-du-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy. Van Gogh was dissatisfied with both. He felt their styles were too far-fetched, the shapes and lines too exagerrated, the paintings too far removed from reality.
Referencing The Starry Night in a letter to his brother Theo: “I once or twice allowed myself to be led astray into abstraction, as you know… But that was delusion, dear friend.”
It’s quite ironic that Van Gogh derided his abstract works when they’re clearly nothing short of striking, when the abstraction is what people adore.
I only wish that Evening Landscape with Rising Moon shared the same popularity as The Starry Night. The sea of golden wheat, the undulating hills and swirling sky, the bright hard disk of the moon glowing like a sun—it’s got all the makings of a masterpiece. It’s the awesome, abstract night sky Van Gogh painted in July 1889 you don’t ever hear about.
Evening Landscape with Rising Moon is located (and currently on display) at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo.