heaven’s communiqué (haibun)

At Carpe Diem the month of February is month of impressions and today, the  Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh who is another impressionist.

© Wikipedia – Sttary Night

Our host presents Starry Night over the Rhone (another painting by Van Gogh) with a lovely story:

Starry Night Over the Rhone – Van Gogh (Wikipedia)
“One of the first paintings of the view was Mountainous Landscape Behind Saint-Rémy, now in Copenhagen, which Van Gogh identified in a letter to his sister Wil from 16 June 1889 as hanging in his studio to dry. Two days later, he wrote to his brother that he had painted “a starry sky.” The Starry Night is the only nocturne painting in the series of views from his bedroom window. In early June Vincent wrote to Theo, “This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big.” Two scholars working independently of each other have determined that Venus was indeed visible in Provence in the spring of 1889. So the brightest “star” in the painting, just to the viewer’s right of the cypress tree, is actually Venus. 
The moon is stylized, as astronomical records indicate that the moon was waning gibbous at the time Van Gogh painted the picture. Even if the phase of the moon had been a waning crescent at the time, Van Gogh’s moon is not astronomically correct. The one pictorial element that was definitely not visible from Van Gogh’s cell is the village, which is based on a sketch made from a hillside above the village of Saint-Rémy.”
Our host has written this haiku with this image and story in mind:

from the asylum
he observed the starry night –
seeking for the light
(c) Chèvrefeuille

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I love visiting my friends in the country. Their home faces five mountains and one is very close, Mont Bromont.  They live dans un rang (a dirt road) lined with farms and vast meadows.  Any season has its charm but in winter the only light we see at night are on the mountain where skiers ski at night. Streams of lights squirming in shapes and curves.  I like to walk near the barn facing the cornfield now covered in white, looking up I try to locate the Big Dipper.  It isn`t long before I am off in my starry world of fantasy and wonder.

© GrandQuébec – Bromont

twilight stroll
translating heaven’s memo,
iridescent sky

© Tournesol ’15

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