There Are Two Starry Nights. You Only Know One.

One was painted inside an asylum. The other, on a riverbank at night.

Most people think there’s one Starry Night.

There are two.

And they’re not the same.

The Starry Night (1889) — the one everyone knows. Not the first.

The first is the one you know -
swirling sky, burning stars, a village below.
It’s been everywhere for decades.

I’ve been staring at it on my mousepad for years.

But in 2023, standing inside the Musée d’Orsay, I turned the corner —

— and saw this.

I didn’t move for awhile.

Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888)