The positions of what were compared to the painting " The Starry Night " in 1985 ?
The " literal " includes both " he painted what he saw " and the " hallucinatory genius " arguments ( as an individual 's hallucinations are indistinguishable from real life ) while the " literary " suggest that inspiration blossomed from some written source ; most often cited for van Gogh 's " Starry Night " are The Bible , Walt Whitman and Victor Hugo .