In “Van Gogh’s Agony” by Lauren Soth, van Gogh explains that he is “having a terrible need of - shall I say the word – religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.” While at Saint Rémy’s, van Gogh started working in the countryside that was around the asylum. The mountains, the town, the cypresses, and the church are all scenes that he has seen around the asylum and combined together to make one image. From his window, van Gogh could see the Alpille mountains which are the setting for the landscape. These mountains are exaggerated in size compared to the real ones and this adds to the imagination process that he continues to use throughout the painting. In front of his cell window he could only see a field, but inside his painting he
