What celestial body is depicted as a crescent in “The Starry Night”? The answer is the Moon.
The crescent Moon appears in the upper-right portion of the painting’s dramatic night sky. Van Gogh rendered it in a strongly stylized way, using a bright yellow form surrounded by energetic brushwork rather than attempting a precise astronomical diagram.
The painting also includes a particularly bright object identified as Venus, often called the morning star. Researchers have found that Venus was visible in the dawn sky over Provence in spring 1889, so it is not simply another painted star. The Moon, however, is not shown with an astronomically accurate phase for the likely date of the scene.
That distinction causes a common misunderstanding: the crescent shape is the Moon, while the conspicuously bright point near the cypress is generally identified as Venus. Neither object should be confused with Saturn, the Sun, or an ordinary star.