The Swirling Sky Question

In June 1889, Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night from his asylum room in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The sky churns with bright stars, a glowing moon, and a huge rolling spiral that swallows the canvas. Below it, a village sleeps in total stillness. The puzzle that art historians still argue over: did this vision come from madness, genius, or both?

Van Gogh's window looked out on rolling hills and a small village. He painted that view again and again, but only here did he turn it into something visionary rather than real. The cypress tree in front writhes upward like a dark green flame. The town below lies impossibly calm. He even added a church spire that the actual village did not have, pulling a memory of his Dutch homeland into a French night.