Starry Night, Reimagined: How Myth Distorted Da Vinci’s Cosmic Vision

At first glance, *Starry Night* often carries the weight of legend—mistakenly attributed to Leonardo da Vinci as one of his most iconic works. Yet unlike the painter’s celebrated *Mona Lisa* or *The Last Supper*, this swirling masterpiece—often called *Starry Night* in popular discourse—was never truly created by da Vinci. The piece commonly referenced as *The Starry Night* belongs not to the Renaissance titan, but rather to the 19th-century Post-Impressionist Vincent van Gogh.

This distinction, long obscured by artistic mythmaking, redefines how we perceive both the painting and da Vinci’s actual legacy. Far from a forgotten da Vinci starry whimsy, the painting’s folk fame illustrates how myths grow around art—often eclipsing historical truth.

Though Leonardo da Vinci produced hundreds of masterpieces, *Starry Night* holds no connection to his hand or palette.

The iconic depiction of a luminous night sky dotted with swirling stars, a glowing crescent moon, and a rhythmic cypress tree is entirely absent from da Vinci’s known oeuvre. According to art historians, the visual language of *Starry Night*—its dynamic brushwork, emotional intensity, and symbolic depth—echoes the innovations of early 20th-century artists like van Gogh, not da Vinci’s Renaissance sensibilities. “The myth persists because we assign great art to now–famous figures, especially da Vinci, whose name evokes genius,” says Dr.

Elena Rossi, curator at the National Gallery. “But such attribution ignores the precise history of artistic development.”

Tracing the Origins: Not Da Vinci, But A Media Myth

The confusion likely arises from conflicting cultural narratives. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) painted numerous nocturnal scenes, including *The Virgin of the Rocks* and sketches of the night sky inspired by optics and astronomy studied during his lifetime.

However, his surviving works rarely depict entire starry heavens in such turbulent motion. What defines modern *Starry Night*—its emotional turbulence, thick impasto, and fiery yellows—aligns more closely with van Gogh’s 1889 work, completed while he was at the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de–Provence. Van Gogh described the night sky in letters to his brother Theo as a living, breathing force, expressing inner turmoil through cosmic energy.