From the Museum.indd Th e Ar t o f T hi nk in g Im pressionism Eur Respir J 2014; 44: 302–303 | DOI: 10.1183/09031936.00440214302 DOI: 10.1183/09031936.00440214 | Copyright ©ERS 2014 From the M useum Starry Night is as famous the world over as its creator was obscure. It is both a mirror of its time and the perpetually troubled soul that created it. Th e night sky is deconstructed into deepened blues and lightened violets (technical immediacy of Impressionism) and reassimilated into a myriad of energised linear swirls and vibrating pulses of yellow-orange radiating out from variably hot centres as a means of revealing an ecstatic inner vision (expressive power of Post-Impressionism). Th e emotionally charged night sky is pierced by an upward-reaching, fl ame-swirling, cypress tree (cemetery association) depicted as a dark green silhouette bordering the shadowy coolness of the sleeping village below. Th e simplicity and sophistication of this image invites us to refl ect deeply on Van Gogh’s comment that “…death is the road we take to reach the stars…” expressed with sincere clarity during a moment of visionary enlightenment within a period of asylum darkness. For the Impressionists, optical realism separated visual experience from memory, cultivating an extreme indiff erence to pictorial content. Sunlight was broken down to its primary colours which were then recombined with short, rapid brush stokes capturing the immediacy of the fl eeting moment. Colour mixing now occurs in the retina and the illusion of form and space is implied by varying intensities of light, shade and colour (detached observer). Th e intimate relationship between art and the science of light, eye physiology and the invention of the camera is further enhanced by the bi-directionality of cause and eff ect. In focusing on how we see rather than what we see, perception is now dominated by optical science; the cool objectivity of impressionism becomes a triumph of technique and sight over insight and expression. Van Gogh shattered the power of this illusion by reminding us that all observation is selection that is coloured by feeling and experienced within the context – and as a property of – mind. In painting Starry Night because “the night is even more richly coloured than the day”, choosing what to highlight and what to omit in a reality that can never be fully captured, and re-interpreting the use of colour and movement as metaphors for energy and emotion – all contextualised by his own unique life adversities – Van Gogh helped us see what we had never seen before. Illusion has now transcended into a new reality; superfi cial realism sacrifi ced for a deeper meaning. Van Gogh’s star burnt briefl y but explosively (1880–1890). His creativity was unleashed during the disintegration of academic art traditions and infl uenced by both the impressionist message and its logical but paradoxical conclusion in the systematised colour theory of Divisionism-Pointillism. He rapidly assimilated the power of capturing the transient eff ects of light and the moment that began with Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (1874 opening impressionist exhibition); the excitement, turmoil and varied individual responses to the multipronged impressionist experiments in means and ends; and the timelessness of sculpting geometry and objects using small dots of meticulously placed colour as exemplifi ed by the neo-impressionistic slice of modern life that was Seurat’s A Sunday Aft ernoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte (1886 fi nal impressionist exhibition). However, true to his time of concentrated change and his own inner needs, Van Gogh felt that the world of dissociated two-dimensional appearances neglected psychological and emotional depth, propelling him to an individual synthesis and response. In leaving Paris, going to Provence and doing what he was, Van Gogh romantically helped to realise the full impact of the impressionistic breakthrough – translating it into a far more expressive language… for the good of all (the fi nal twist). Tom Kotsimbos Dept of Medicine, Central Clinical School, Monash University; Dept of Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, 3004, Australia. E-mail: tom.kotsimbos@monash.edu Vincent Van Gogh: Starry Night: 1889; Museum of Modern Art, New York Claude Monet: Impression, Sunrise: 1872; Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris Georges Seurat: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte: 1886; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Im pr es si on is m 303 “Th e big picture is all in the detail” Charles Darwin Van Gogh MonetSeurat Optics Perception Illusion << /ASCII85EncodePages false /AllowTransparency false /AutoPositionEPSFiles true /AutoRotatePages /None /Binding /Left /CalGrayProfile (Dot Gain 10%) /CalRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CalCMYKProfile (Europe ISO Coated FOGRA27) /sRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CannotEmbedFontPolicy /Error /CompatibilityLevel 1.7 /CompressObjects /Off /CompressPages true /ConvertImagesToIndexed true /PassThroughJPEGImages true /CreateJobTicket false /DefaultRenderingIntent /Default /DetectBlends true /DetectCurves 0.1000 /ColorConversionStrategy /LeaveColorUnchanged /DoThumbnails false /EmbedAllFonts true /EmbedOpenType false /ParseICCProfilesInComments true /EmbedJobOptions true /DSCReportingLevel 0 /EmitDSCWarnings false /EndPage -1 /ImageMemory 1048576 /LockDistillerParams true /MaxSubsetPct 100 /Optimize false /OPM 1 /ParseDSCComments true /ParseDSCCommentsForDocInfo true /PreserveCopyPage false /PreserveDICMYKValues true /PreserveEPSInfo true /PreserveFlatness true /PreserveHalftoneInfo false /PreserveOPIComments false /PreserveOverprintSettings true /StartPage 1 /SubsetFonts false /TransferFunctionInfo /Apply /UCRandBGInfo /Preserve /UsePrologue false /ColorSettingsFile () /AlwaysEmbed [ true ] /NeverEmbed [ true /AdobeSansMM /AdobeSerifMM ] /AntiAliasColorImages false /CropColorImages true /ColorImageMinResolution 150 /ColorImageMinResolutionPolicy /Warning /DownsampleColorImages false /ColorImageDownsampleType /Average /ColorImageResolution 300 /ColorImageDepth 8 /ColorImageMinDownsampleDepth 1 /ColorImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeColorImages true /ColorImageFilter /FlateEncode /AutoFilterColorImages false /ColorImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /ColorACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /ColorImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000ColorImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages true /GrayImageMinResolution 150 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /Warning /DownsampleGrayImages false /GrayImageDownsampleType /Average /GrayImageResolution 300 /GrayImageDepth 8 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /FlateEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages false /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /GrayImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000GrayImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages true /MonoImageMinResolution 900 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /Warning /DownsampleMonoImages false /MonoImageDownsampleType /Average /MonoImageResolution 1200 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict << /K -1 >> /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly true /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox true /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile (None) /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName () /PDFXTrapped /False /CreateJDFFile false /Description << /CHS /CHT /DAN /DEU /ESP /FRA /ITA (Utilizzare queste impostazioni per creare documenti Adobe PDF adatti per visualizzare e stampare documenti aziendali in modo affidabile. 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