Order this one
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The story
Van Gogh painted this from the window of an asylum in Saint-Rémy, from memory and before sunrise, and told his brother it was a failure. It is now the most reproduced night sky in human history, mostly badly.
The trick with Starry Night is scale and paper. Small and glossy, it looks like a dorm poster. Big and matte, with the blues allowed to go deep instead of purple, it looks like the thing that keeps a room company at 2am.
Buy the largest matte print you can hang and put it in something heavy. Black or raw wood. Nothing gold — the yellows in the sky are already doing that job.
What it pairs with
A cheap black frame and a room you do not sleep well in.
Buying notes
- Matte over glossy, always. Glossy reproductions fight every light source in a real room.
- Go one size larger than feels sensible. Undersized art is the most common mistake there is.
- Hang the centre of the piece at 57 inches from the floor. Non-negotiable.
- A three-inch mat costs about eighteen dollars and does more than a two-hundred-dollar print.
