In 1889, the artist Vincent Van Gogh, while enduring one of the saddest and loneliest times of his career, looked out of his iron-barred sanatorium window and painted the masterpiece we know today as “Starry, Starry Night.”

Today, that painting is named his “magnum opus.” He wrote in a letter prior in 1888 that the “great starlit vault of heavens is what we commonly call God.” I can’t help but believe that for the struggling artist, that star-filled nighttime view of Saint-Remy-de-Provence was for Van Gogh a sign of beauty and hope in the otherwise dark landscape of his pain-filled soul.

If a painting could represent a paradox of darkness and hope, this masterpiece by Van Gogh says it all. Take a look at it for a moment.

Can you feel the dark night of the rolling hills, the silent, dark…