Merge the Imagination with the reality (Van Gogh painting description)

This painting which was painted by Van Gogh shows a port with 2 persons an the bottom of the picture.In the background you can see a lightful city with many lights which were reflected by the water of the port.In the middle of the picture are two boots which are surrounded by water. This water is also surrounded by a lightful city. At the top of the picture you can see a sky full of stars.The blue colors of the water and the sky are mixed with the yellow colors of the lights from the city. Thats why it is difficult to see what part of the picture contains to what. But which part of the picture is the water and which the sky or the city? The painting shows that it is sometimes difficult to differ the reality from the imagination.

First of all the many different kinds of the blue color make it difficult to decide which part of the painting is the water and which part the sky or the city. In the sky is a lightful and strong blue. The water is painted with a dark blue that is combined with black. In the foreground is another kind of blue. It is a lightful and a grey blue. These different kinds of blue make it hard to decide which of them is what part of the picture.

Furthermore the merge of the colors is an important thing that you have to think about. Van Gogh is merging many kinds of blue like in the water the dark blue with some lightful parts of blue which were lighted by the yellow lights of the city. The blue is merged with some other colors like yellow and green from the ground so that it gets also more difficult to differentiate the scenes of the picture. 

Also an important fact is the way how the picture is drawn. The picture is painted with many short lines and points so that every thing is cut into pieces. This is hard to recognize and the whole picture gets hard to differentiate. 

The picture goes fluencly over the different parts of the picture so that you might think that a part of the sky is a part of the city. It also can happen that the water is seen as a part of the city because the city is reflected in the water. 

This reflection is the most important thing in the picture that make you feel puzzled and not sure about it. 

All in all there are many different things that make the picture being confusing. Its hard to recognize the different parts of the picture and you can loose your oriantation quickly in the merging colors.

Thats why I think that the painting shows that it is difficult to find the difference between the reality and the imagination.

Philipp Jessen