Pieta (After Delacroix) by Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh's Pietà (After Delacroix) was painted in 1889, shortly after his return to work, when Vincent resumed his old habit of making oil copies of black and white reproductions of the works of art he admired. Eugène Delacroix's color theory had shaped Vincent van Gogh's ideas about color from his earliest reflections on painting. The resonant contrast of blue and yellow in Pietà -- broken only by Christ's red hair and beard -- heightens the emotional power as well as his personal connection to the art of Delacroix.

Pietà (After Delacroix) (oil on canvas, 16-1/2x13-1/2 inches), by Vincent van Gogh, can be found at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Ward of Arles Hospital by Vincent van Gogh

The 1889 painting Ward of Arles Hospital, by Vincent van Gogh, portrays the institution where Vincent spent his last months in Arles. When his health permitted, van Gogh left the premises to paint in the fields. He also painted the scenes outside his window. Vincent van Gogh felt more secure living with medical supervision, but in his painting, Ward of Arles Hospital, the exaggerated length of the corridor and the nervous contours that delineate the figures of the patients express the emotional weight of his isolation and confinement.

Vincent van Gogh's Ward of Arles Hospital (oil on canvas, 28-1/4x35-1/4 inches) is part of the Collection Oskar Reinhart 'Am Römerholz,' Winterthur, Switzerland.

Van Gogh didn't brood on such depressing subjects entirely, however. Keep reading to learn more about a lighter work that he completed around this same time.

The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night while in the Saint-Rémy asylum in 1889. Vincent's room in the Saint-Rémy asylum looked out on the eastern sky. He painted The Starry Night as a panoramic vista spreading out into an almost infinite distance under a tumultuous sky ablaze with stars. 

Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night (oil on canvas, 29x36-1/4 inches) hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The writhing branches of the cypress in the foreground are carved, like the stars, in thick impasto, and the tree vibrates with the rhythms of nature's divinity. The orange-yellow crescent moon makes a stark contrast to the vivid blue firmament, recalling Vincent van Gogh's belief that arbitrary color allowed him to express himself "more forcefully."

Eventually van Gogh was allowed to leave the confines of the asylum to paint the surrounding areas. Next, we'll look at one of those paintings. HowStuffWorks