Starry night over the Rhone

Painted in September 1888, this nighttime scene shows the Rhône River as it flowed past the town of Arles in southern France. Van Gogh set up his easel along the riverbank and worked by gaslight to capture the gas lamps glowing on the far shore, their reflections stretching like golden ribbons across the water. Above it all, the Big Dipper hangs in the sky. He was so taken with the effect that he wrote to his brother Theo about how the night, to him, felt far more alive and colorful than the day.

Notice the couple strolling arm in arm in the foreground. They give the painting a quiet, human warmth that balances the vast sky above them. This work came about a year before Van Gogh's more famous "The Starry Night," and you can see him already experimenting with how to paint light and stars using thick, swirling brushstrokes. It is a lovely example of his Post-Impressionist style, where mood and emotion mattered more than copying every detail exactly. Today the painting lives at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.