Who did Van Gogh write in 1888 expressing his desire to paint the night sky ?
Briefly , the paper examines the myriad artistic influences van Gogh was parsing the summer of 1888 : his lifelong devotion to and imitation of Jesus Christ ; synthesizing " Japonism " and " Cloisonnism " with his own " plein air " techniques ; colorizing Jean - François Millet 's pious genre scenes with Eugène Delacroix 's luminous palette ( see Boats du Rhône ) ; " search - for - sacred - realism " correspondence with his artist friend Émile Bernard ; Thomas Carlyle and Boccaccio 's examples of dressing old ideas in new clothes ; an Émile Burnouf article claiming Buddhist missionaries sowed the seeds Essenes later reaped as Christianity ; failed attempts creating his own Christ in the Garden of Olives ; two proximal " Last Supper " studies ( " Interior of a Restaurant in Arles " and " Interior of the Restaurant Carrel in Arles " ) featuring straw - bottomed chairs he 'd just purchased by the dozen ( hoping to start a commune of twelve " artist - apostles " at his Yellow House ) ; culminating with his composition of twelve diners drenched in a yellow halo surrounding a Rembrandtesque server framed by a crucifix at the vanishing point of the picture ; it 's concluded his original starry night is a Symbolist 's " Last Supper " .