About The Starry Night
Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889, while he was staying at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, in the south of France. The view is based on what he could see from his bedroom window before sunrise: the hills, the olive groves and the morning star. The village with its church spire is largely his invention, and he painted the picture in his studio during the day, not under the night sky.
The sky is the painting’s engine. Eleven stars and a crescent moon blaze inside halos of thick paint, and a great spiral rolls across the middle, as if the wind itself had become visible. In the foreground a dark cypress rises like a flame and links the earth to the sky.
The canvas is small, about 74 by 92 centimeters. It has belonged to the Museum of Modern Art in New York since 1941 and is one of the best-known paintings in the world.
Tips for this puzzle
Start with the border, then the cypress: its near-black shape is easy to pick out. The village rooftops come next. Leave the swirling blue sky for last, and follow the direction of the brushstrokes to match pieces.
Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Public domain (PD-Art); image: commons.wikimedia.org. Image source. All image credits
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How to play
- Pick 12 to 150 pieces (up to 48 on a phone). Each piece count keeps its own puzzle, so you can switch and come back.
- Drag a piece into the frame. Drop it close to where it belongs and it clicks into place and stays there.
- Outside the frame, drop a piece next to one it fits and they join. A joined group moves as one, and clicks into the frame as one.
- Preview shows the whole painting faintly in the frame. Edges only hides every piece without a straight edge, so you can do the border first.
- Tidy lines up the loose pieces beside the frame, edge pieces first. Press it again to scatter them.
- The clock starts with your first move and stops while you’re paused or in another tab. There’s no time limit.
- Your puzzle is saved in this browser as you go. Leave and come back to carry on where you left off.
Keyboard
Press Tab to go from piece to piece. The arrow keys move the piece one place at a time, lined up with the places in the frame, and Enter or Space drops it.
A jigsaw is a puzzle about seeing shapes and colors, so there’s no way to play it with a screen reader. We’re sorry about that.
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