Interpreting Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” Painting through Poetry and B&W Photography

 

 

I came across a free verse poem by Anne Sexton title “Starry Night” ⁽¹⁾, inspired by the iconic 1889 painting of Vincent van Gogh. The first lines of the poem are:

 

The town does not exist

except where one black-haired tree slips

up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.

The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.   

Oh starry starry night! This is how

I want to die.

 

Before I even continue reading the rest of Sexton’s poem, my mind made up its own free verse fantasy of wondering how Van Gogh’s painting would look if it were in black and white. Would the night sky still be hot?  Would the stars still boil the turbulent sky in flames of silver, yellow and blue?

As a B&W film photographer, I often look at the message of paintings and colour photos by transforming them, in my mind’s eyes, into monochrome. Perhaps it is because I believe that if the story/message means as much to the viewers as it was to the artist, it should come through in black and white alone.

So, here is a photo of Van Gogh’s painting which I rotated

 

And the transformation I digitally made into monochrome, and rotated the original painting’s perspective to discover a new optic 

 

 

 

Then, Sexton’s description of “black-haired tree” gave me an idea: what if I use the pelt of a desert hare I had kept to use as canvas for my next painting and see if I can re-imagine, or re-image, a new starry night with the moon being a shade of gray instead of the burning yellow Van Gogh saw.

 

I framed the pelt with emphasis on the re-creation of a round moon on the upper left quadrant. Now the "sun" is at the left, the town is covered by fog, and the "black-haired tree" is slimmer and serpentine.I have done this before – with the right pressure on the frame glass, fur flattens and can result in a perfectly round circle. And the natural colours of the South Western desert black tail hare came close to a B&W photo.

The result is shown at the outset.

I sent the photo to a psychologist friend, and her reaction was:

“Your starry night is homage to neuroplasticity reflective through the monochromatic colors of experimentation”

Hmm…..

 

March 11, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

 

PS/ I have been inspired by a painting of Van Gogh. Here is that link:

https://vaheark.blogspot.com/2025/06/what-if-young-peasant-in-peaked-cap.html

 

Reference

(1)    The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1981)