Episode 33: Van Gogh & Starry Night

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Useful links:

• Museum of Modern Art – Official entry for Starry Night
• Official Website of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam [tons of information!]
• Google Arts & Culture – Starry Night [super high resolution image, zoomable]

Sources:

• Bakker, Nienke, Leo Jansen, and Hans Luijten, eds. Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters. London: Thames & Hudson, 2020.
• Boime, Albert. Starry Night: A History of Matter, a Matter of History. New York: Voyager, 1995.
• Bomford, David, ed. Vincent van Gogh: His Life in Art. Houston: The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, 2019. [catalogue for exhibition]
• Hall, Marcia. “Color as the Expression of the Immaterial.” In The Power of Color: Five Centuries of European Painting, 229-253. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019. [chapter in book]
• Hulsker, Jan. The Complete Van Gogh: Paintings, Drawings, Sketches. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1996.
• Keller, Horst. Vincent van Gogh: The Final Years. New York: Harry N. Abrams, c1969.
• Naifeh, Steven and Gregory White Smith. Van Gogh: The Life. New York: Random House, 2011.
• Pickvance, Ronald. Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy and Auvers. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986. [PDF available for free through the Metropolitan Museum of Art]

Essays/articles:

• Hammond, Claudia. “Does mental illness enhance creativity?” BBC Future, February 25, 2016.
• Paulson, Noelle. “Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night.” Smarthistory, August 9, 2015.
• Trachtman, Paul. “Van Gogh’s Night Visions.” Smithsonian Magazine, January 2008.
• White, Katie. “Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night Has Captivated…” Artnet News, October 15, 2021.

Articles related to the 2020 theft of The Parsonage Garden at Neunen:

• “Dutch Art Thief Gets Eight Years…” Artforum, September 27, 2021.
• Rea, Naomi. “A Remarkable Hostage-Like Photograph…” Art World, June 18, 2020.
• Wu, Katherine. “Van Gogh Masterpiece Stolen from Dutch Museum Shuttered by COVID-19.” Smithsonian Magazine, March 30, 2020.

Studies on Creativity and Mental Illness [most require individual or institutional subscriptions to read]:

• Abraham, Anna. “Is there an inverted-U relationship between creativity and psychopathology?” Frontiers in Psychology 5 (2014): article 750.
• Andreasen, Nancy. “Creativity and mental illness: prevalence rates in writers and their first-degree relatives.” The American Journal of Psychiatry 144, no. 10 (October 1987): 1288-1292.
• Jamison, Kay Redfield. “Mood disorders and patterns of creativity in British writers and artists.” Psychiatry 52, no. 2 (May 1989): 125-134.
• Ludwig, Arnold. “Creative achievement and psychopathology: Comparison among professions.” The American Journal of Psychotherapy 456, no. 3 (1992): 330-356.
• Schlesinger, Judith. “Creative mythconceptions: A closer look at the evidence for the ‘mad genius’ hypothesis.” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 3, no. 2 (2017), 62-72.
• Taylor, Christa. “Creativity and Mood Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 12, no. 6 (2017): 1040-1076.
• Waddell, Charlotte. “Creativity and Mental Illness: Is There a Link?” The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 43, no. 2 (1998): 166-172.
• Zabelina, Darya, David Condon, and Mark Beeman. “Do dimensional psychopathology measures relate to creative achievement or divergent thinking?” Frontiers in Psychology 5 (2014): article 1029.

Media / Exhibitions:

• Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience
• Lust for Life (1956 film)
• Loving Vincent (2017 film)
• At Eternity’s Gate (2018 film)
• Doctor Who – “Vincent and the Doctor” (s05 e10)
  • clip of Van Gogh visiting the Louvre (get your tissues!)
  • clip of Starry Night

Mentioned in episode:

• Lilianne Milgrom – L’Origine: The Secret Life of the World’s Most Erotic Masterpiece
• Bowdoin College Museum of Art – Antiquity & America: The Ancient Mediterranean in the United States

Images:

Happy listening!

Lindsay