Blue Light Visualization with Edvard Munch’s Starry Night

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Announcer: This is a Getty podcast.

Lilit Sadoyan: Today we’re exploring the power of the color blue in Edvard Munch’s Starry Night.

[Theme music begins]

Welcome to Our Museum Mindfulness Meditation podcast, or OMMM. Part art history and part meditation, we use works of art from the Getty collection as inspiration for mindfulness and deep reflection.

Hi—I’m Lilit Sadoyan. I’m a long-time meditation practitioner and museum educator at Getty. Thanks for joining me as we bring mindfulness out of the gallery and into our daily lives.

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Today we’re exploring memory landscapes and the color blue with Edvard Munch’s 1893 painting Starry Night.

This episode begins with a breathing exercise to help you relax your body and mind. We’ll then give a bit of history and context for Munch’s painting. And we’ll close with a meditation and blue light visualization.

This series is also available as an audio podcast. If you’d like to step away from a screen for a few minutes, listen on your favorite podcast app.

Now, if you’re ready, let’s jump in. [gong chimes]

[Slow, meditative music begins]

Go ahead and find a comfortable meditation posture, whatever that means for you today–maybe you’re sitting, lying down, or standing, something that allows you to feel relaxed yet alert.

And if you’re comfortable, you can close your eyes.

Let’s start by taking a few deep breaths together.

In through the nose. [inhales] Out through the mouth. [exhales]

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

One more deep inhale. Deep exhale.

Now let your breathing resume its natural rhythm. [chimes ring]

[Music ends]

We’re talking today about memory landscapes. What does that mean? Artist Edvard Munch believed that the artist’s feelings were crucial when producing a painting and that a landscape alters according to the person who sees it. Munch was not interested in rendering landscapes in a photorealistic manner. They were abstracted to convey a mood. Munch believed that “art is the antithesis of nature.” The unnaturalness of this landscape lifts the scene into the realms of the imagination and subconscious.

[Slow music begins]

Starry Night is a night landscape painting of a coastline at Asgardstrand, which is a small beach resort south of Oslo, Norway. Asgardstrand was a place full of memories for Munch; he spent many summers there. Munch painted this view of the coastline from his room at the Grand Hotel. But he’s also painting his memories of the place and the people he associates with it. This is where he recalled falling in love.

Try to picture the painting in your mind. Imagine a large canvas that’s almost a perfect square–about four and a half feet on each side. It’s so big you might feel like you could just step inside it.

The canvas is more or less divided into two parts along the diagonal: the top left half is a sky scattered with white, light blue, light green, and red stars and planets, as well as some placid water with a few stars reflected there. The bottom right half holds an outcropping of land, including, most noticeably, a large, dark mound-like shape at right representing a clump of linden trees. These rise above the horizon line and into the night sky, covering a big part of the sky on the right side.

A fence, represented by a pale blue diagonal plane, cuts across the painting from the bottom right corner into the lower middle. It encloses a shadowy orchard with a small red-roofed building and tall flagpole. This fence has an unusual rounded silhouette on it that echoes the shape of the linden tree behind. This silhouette may be a shadow of two lovers embracing. But we don’t actually see the lovers themselves in the painting—almost like they’re a memory, too.

The application of paint is thick in some areas and quite transparent in others. The brushstrokes themselves vary too, from splotchy and vague to linear and sketchy. Some smaller passages of paint even drip downward, their watery consistency susceptible to gravity.

Upon first glance, the painting seems monochromatic. The canvas is predominantly blue. But the more time you spend with it, the more it reveals nuance in the tones, from cool to warm, dark to light, and even shades of red and green.

The artist Edvard Munch used color as a powerful tool to express emotions and psychological states. When I see this painting, I think about all the ways this blue color palette is emotional. To me, it’s melancholy but also calm. It’s mystical and mysterious. The painting is magical.

This painting also reminds me of being underneath the vast expanse of the night sky, which always elicits awe, wonder, and mystery. It makes us pause and reflect. And it reminds us that we are infinitesimally small, living within an ever-expanding universe.

Gazing at the stars can foster a feeling of being part of something much bigger—an interconnectedness. Munch saw lessons in the stars for his understanding of humanity, too. He said “People’s souls are like planets. Like a star that appears out of the gloom and meets another star—they shine brightly and then disappear completely into the darkness.”

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I invite you to awaken in yourself this experience of being under a night sky, a vast expanse dotted with countless stars and planets, embracing the mystery of the unknown.

Does it bring up memories of a time or place when you felt like that before?

Now turning from what’s “out there” to what’s inside. Take a moment to notice where you feel that memory in your body.

[Meditative music begins]

Keeping this image of the stars and coastline in our minds, let’s close with a mindfulness meditation and blue light visualization.

If you feel comfortable, you can close your eyes. If you would prefer to keep your eyes open, that’s ok, too. Try to lower your gaze and lower your lids to minimize visual distraction. Use this time to go inward.

And again, adopt a posture that feels good for you today. Something that feels relaxed yet alert in your body.

We’ll come back to those deep breaths. In through the nose. [inhales] Out through the mouth. [exhales]

Deep breath in. [inhales] Deep breath out. [exhales]

One more inhale. Let it go.

And now let your breathing resume its natural rhythm. So there’s no need to force or extend anything here. Let your body do what it does very naturally.

[Silence]

And it’s something we don’t often think about. We take around 22,000 breaths per day, so notice for yourself, without judgement, how many of those breaths do I pay attention to? You can do that now: give your full and undivided attention to one full breath cycle.

[Silence]

And the next one.

[Silence]

And the next one.

[Silence]

And if your mind wanders, know that that’s absolutely natural. There’s no need to clear or empty the mind. That’s actually a misconception.

Come back to your breath, using your breath as your anchor.

I invite you to envision a shade of blue. Any shade that comes to mind. It can be a deep ocean blue. It can be a light sky blue. Whatever resonates with you today in this moment.

[Meditative music begins]

And imagine that this blue is in the form of a light that enters through the crown of your head. And as this blue light travels over and across your body, it relaxes any unnecessary points of tension or clenching, just releases whatever that’s there. So imagine that the blue light enters through the crown of your head, and it travels across your scalp, around your eyebrows, your eyes, cheeks, your jaw. Imagine that the blue light travels down your neck and your shoulders. See if you can drop your shoulders a little bit here.

Now imagine that the blue light travels down both arms all the way down to your hands, and this light wiggles around each and every finger: pinky fingers, ring fingers, middle fingers, index fingers, thumbs. The light swirls around your palms, and it travels back up your wrists and forearms and elbows, upper arms, armpits, and it moves into your chest.

And imagine that this blue light swirls around your heart, and it moves down your torso—that’s the front and the sides and the back of your body, inside and out. And this blue light travels down into your hips. See what you can let go of here.

And imagine yourself supported by the surface upon which you’re seated. This floor or this chair, this ground, this room, this piece of land, this city, this state, this country, this continent, this earth. And suddenly, you’re floating in the universe.

And coming back to your seat here and now, picking up on that blue light that then travels down both legs all the way down to your feet, wiggles around your toes, and having washed all the way through your body, it leaves through the soles of your feet.

Notice how you feel right now. Notice what, if anything, has shifted in you since we began. And consider what emotions the color blue evoked in you. Were there any memories tied to that? And turning inward like the vast expanse of the sky is contained within you, look with awe and wonder to discover yourself.

Let’s close our practice with one deep breath in through your nose. [inhales] Sigh it out. [exhales]

If your eyes are closed, you can gently open them. Come back to the space that you’re in. Slowly bring your awareness to your environment.

And now I invite you to carry the following reflection with you into your day: as we return to the world, let’s carry this sense of presence and connection with us. And I want you to see if you can find different opportunities throughout your day to notice the color blue around you and how it makes you feel. Each time you see the color blue today, or this week, take it as a reminder to be in the present moment, to check back in with yourself. We can notice the sensations or emotions it evokes. Are they tied to any memories? Let’s return to our breath and close by taking a full deep breath together, the biggest breath you’ve taken today.

Inhale. Let it go.

Thank you so much for joining me.

[Music slowly fades out]