「별이 빛나는 밤」을 통한 휘트먼과 고흐의 예술적 만남

Walt Whitman and Vincent Van Gogh: Focusing on their artistic meeting through "Starry Night"

The poet and the painter share many interesting similarities. Their work may have a similar tone and produce comparable emotions. This study demonstrates that Whitman's poems have inspired and influenced Van Gogh's paintings and also that the artistic meeting between Whitman and Van Gogh is made possible by their artistic emotion and similar subject. Van Gogh's letter(1888) to his sister, Wilhelmien about "the American poems by Whitman", provides evidence that Van Gogh was avidly reading Whitman's From Noon to Starry Night(1881) when he was painting "Starry Night". Van Gogh's "Starry Night" has also influenced the American pop song, "Vincent" by Don McLean. This song was inspired by the mental anguish Van Gogh felt, and it is a tribute to Van Gogh's artistic world. The poet who depicted himself as an image of Christ and the painter who introduced Whitman to his sister and brother share their poetic and imaginative subject in their artistic works. They both passionately loved nature and celebrated its myriad of stars. Whitman's poems and Van Gogh's paintings are based on similar subjects from an artistic point of view. “Starry Night" quite literally represents "the poet in a starry night" because it is inspired by the poet of a starry night. Furthermore, it is evident that between them they invented a new artistic world toward human striving. Finally I think that they met each other as intermediaries between the outmoded art of the past and the shining new art of the future through their similar artistic works.