Starry Night

Night at Åsgårdstrand, the little beach resort south of Oslo where Edvard Munch spent his summers: an undulating shoreline, a clump of trees reduced to an abstract mound, and a white fence running diagonally before a sky and water of blue. Munch sought the emotions the night called forth rather than its picturesque facts — mysticism, melancholy, premonition — and stars reflect in the sea while a flash of light gleams in the trees. The vaguely defined shape on the fence may be the shadow of two lovers, a recurring theme in his work. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.