Starry Night & Van Gogh’s God Of Light

Polls say organized religion wanes in our cynical society, yet might the faithful take solace in even a Van Gogh’s constant hinting at a Divine Presence in his art, & therefore in all of us, despite his madness & suicide?

As John J. Miller in his WSJ piece persuasively argues, “You Can See God in Van Gogh’s Paintings,” even in the tortured soul’s “ostensibly secular work, faith flows as a powerful undercurrent.” As the Hillsdale College prof noted, “Van Gogh wasn’t a religious painter, at least not in the mold of Michelangelo, Raphael or Caravaggio, who often portrayed scenes from the Bible.” Only a few of Van Gogh’s nearly 900 paintings have a clearly religious theme, including “The Raising of Lazarus,” “The Good Samaritan” & two versions of the “Pieta,” one of which hangs in the Vatican. Yet, nearly 30 versions of “The Sower” suggest the Gospel parable, while his common “renderings of gardens & olive trees invoke Gethsemane;” moreover, his many paintings of irises, that bloom around Easter, are widely seen as standing for Jesus’s resurrection.

But, it’s perhaps in Van Gogh’s occasional depiction of the Heavens at nighttime, especially during the last months of his life when desperation took hold of him, that we see the suggested nexus between God & man made in His image, refusing to give up. As Mr. Miller quoted Van Gogh in a 1888 letter to his brother Theo about his “tremendous need for, shall I say the word – religion -- so I go outside at night to paint the stars.” Think the haunting “Starry Night,” now hanging in NY’s Mod Art Museum, & “Starry Night Over the Rhone,” showing the city of Arles whose lights shine along a riverbank & reflect the water as a couple locks arms in the foreground. The obscure skyline, we’re told, includes easily overlooked details: “The dome & spire of two churches as well as tower of a convent.” As Miller concluded, “Their faint presence is a reminder that in the art of Van Gogh, faith flows as a powerful undercurrent.” And, so might it in all of our lives?

Davd Soul