5 famous paintings inspired by real places

Life imitates art? And truth! Few people know that, in some cases, it is possible to visit the places that inspired the most iconic works of art in history. Discover the five works of art inspired by real life here.

1.Vincent's Starry Night Van Gogh (Arles, France).
Most of Vincente Van Ggh's works were painted from the observation of landscapes. The Starry Night painting was created with elements from the memory of Van Gogh. This interest in landscape started after the asylum in Provence. In that period, he broke with his impressionist phase, presenting a very characteristic and unique style, in which strong primary tones such as yellow predominated. Today, this is one of the most famous and celebrated paintings in the world, but once it was simply a composition of a starry night, about 150m from the Yellow House, the artist's residence in Arles.

2.Café Terrace at Night by Vincent Van Gogh (Arles, France).
The French city of Arles was home to Vincent Van Gogh for over a year. This painting depicts a nocturnal scene, in which Van Gogh uses perspective to draw the viewer's eye towards the café, Terraço do Café. The composition presents two sources of light: the natural one – coming from the stars – and the artificial one – coming from the coffee, which merge together. The coffee has countless shades of yellow that contrast wonderfully with the different shades of blue.

3. Claude Monet's Water Lilies (Giverny, France).
The landscape portrayed is the painter's own garden, in Giverny, France. Claude Monet moved to this town northwest of Paris with his family in 1883 and purchased the property seven years later. This is a work that beautifully represents the impressionist period. Painted in 1899, the canvas measures 93cmx74cm and immortalizes the idyllic nature of this magnificent garden.

4. Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth (Cushing, Maine).
American artist Andrew Wyeth represented the tragic realism of the United States, from its houses, roads, stations to its people. His plays created an endless debate about the nature of modernism. In the painting World of Christina, Andrew Wyeth portrays Anna Christina Olson, a woman who suffered from polio, which paralyzed the movements of her legs. Andrew Wyeth, who had a holiday home in the area, saw the girl in the countryside one day, which inspired him to paint. The house painted on canvas, the Olson House, is located in Cushing, Maine, and is now a national heritage site, having been restored to resemble the image in which Wyeth immortalized it.

5.American Gothic by Grant Wood (Eldon, Iowa).
In the summer of 1930, Grant Wood visited Eldon, Lowa and there saw a small white cabin, the Dibble House located 100 miles from Des Moines. The painter found it “pretentious” for such a humble house to have a “gothic carpenter” window on the second floor, so he sketched the house in an envelope. Inspired by the window that recalled the cathedrals he saw in Europe during his travels, Wood placed his all-American inspiration in a “striking frontal plane” that recalls Renaissance art in the Netherlands. A fantastic combination of the two cultures that brought great success to this painting.