21333 The Starry Night unveiled!
Posted by CapnRex101,
LEGO has announced the newest Ideas model, 21333 The Starry Night!
Reimagine Vincent van Gogh's iconic painting with the new LEGO Ideas Starry Night set
In tribute to Vincent van Gogh’s famous painting, the LEGO Group has revealed the LEGO Ideas The Starry Night set. This beautiful set was designed by Truman Cheng, a 25-year old Hong Kong based LEGO fan, through a submission on the LEGO Ideas platform, and has been created in conjunction with The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The three-dimensional set reimagines Vincent van Gogh’s renowned 1889 painting in LEGO form, with strong emphasis on the artist’s striking brush strokes and colour choice. Inspired by the view from his window at the Monastery of Saint-Paul de Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy, France, where the artist spent twAelve months, The Starry Night is one of the world’s most well-known post-impressionist works and has been a visitor favourite at MoMA since it first arrived in 1935.
Art lovers can swap paint palettes for LEGO bricks and re-create one of the world’s most recognisable masterpieces. From the twinkling stars and mesmerising moon to the sleeping Provence village below, van Gogh’s image has been brought spectacularly to life in brick, capturing the artist’s swirling brushstrokes.
To celebrate and inspire creativity, the LEGO Group has also launched a competition encouraging fans to submit their own mini LEGO builds inspired by the night’s sky. Winning designs will form part of an installation displayed in the lobby at the Museum of Modern Art this summer. Participants in Spain, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Mexico and Poland can enter by simply visiting https://www.LEGO.com/Starry-Night or select LEGO stores.
Honouring the celebrated artist, the set also includes a van Gogh minifigure, complete with a paint brush, palette, easel and mini painting on a printed tile, which can even be attached via an arm to show him painting the scene. The intricate set can be displayed standing or on the wall, thanks to the hanging feature.
When developing the original concept, Truman Cheng, a PhD student and LEGO fan, was just playing with LEGO bricks when he realised that stacking them together in random intervals looked a like van Gogh’s iconic brush strokes. “It was a good brain tease to come up with tricks and techniques to capture the look of the original painting,” Cheng said, talking about his design “The brushwork goes into many directions in the moon and the swirling cloud, so there was some creative use of bracket and clip elements involved.”
Once Truman’s design had received 10,000 votes from the LEGO fan community, it was considered for development by the LEGO Group. Talking of the decision to turn the design into a real set, Federico Begher, Head of Global Marketing, said, “What makes The Starry Night so irresistible is the expressive brush work and vibrant colours used throughout, which tell the story of humanity’s everlasting dream for better things. Truman’s design was a masterpiece in itself – showing how many different LEGO elements and techniques could be used to replicate van Gogh’s iconic painting.
At the LEGO Group, we want to inspire the world to get creative, so we’re incredibly proud to have brought this set to life in partnership with such an iconic institution as MoMA, allowing fans to be artistic with bricks, and to create and display their own masterpiece.”
“At MoMA, we celebrate the opportunity to connect art and audiences, and are thrilled to be part of a new way to experience van Gogh’s work, and to inspire the creative impulse in people of all ages,” said Sarah Suzuki, Associate Director, The Museum of Modern Art.
The set will go on sale on 25th May exclusively for LEGO VIP’s and MoMA members and then will be available globally from 01st June.
More images are available on the set details page and our review will be published shortly.
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53 comments on this article
Yes, this set is an absolute must buy for me! I think that fan designer Truman Cheng did an outstanding job in translating a piece of Dutch heritage into LEGO bricks, and I like the modifications made by the LEGO design team.
When the Starry Night submission was selected to become an official set I was slightly worried that it would be turned into a mosaic, which in my view would not have represented the brush strokes of the original painting very well.
Love it... And it even comes with a minifigure!!!
Love this! Never fails to amaze me what can be done with Lego.
It’s a thing of beauty... I just love it, though it’s more expensive than I was expecting. Definitely will buy it eventually.
Been waiting for this for so long now, but definitely not disappointed! Feels like a surprisingly fair price, too!
This is more like it! Put the dots in the bin now and let your imagination work in 3D. Great looking set with many creative details. More like this please.
What's with 6 or more ideas sets within a year? Who can keep up with that!??
Slow the heck down!
Nice set though.
How long will it be before someone uses this head for Obi-Wan?
General Van Goghbi!
Pretty much perfect. I'm surprised just how close this is to the original submission too. Looks like an iteration rather than a complete overhaul like we usually get.
Looks briliant!
I wish LEGO Art would focus more on classical pieces of artwork instead of "pop icons" as they have so far. That's not my idea of art. Stuff like Van Gogh is.
The best Lego Art set. And it is not even part of the theme.
Missed opportunity to not include the new printed ear piece from the 12 Grimmauld Place set.
Looking forward to this, looks good with a frame but I think the original submission looks better, but this is damn good too!
Easy day one purchase for me. As someone who is a big fan of Van Gogh's work and knows their story, this Idea was something I always wanted.
Brilliantly designed by Truman Cheng and an inspired choice by LEGO! I’m not into LEGO art but if I were, this set would be top of my list.
@tecjam said:
"What's with 6 or more ideas sets within a year? Who can keep up with that!??
Slow the heck down!"
TLG is heavily pushing an initiative to bring in new types of consumers who are not already fans of LEGO. Many of these new sets are intended to be someone's first LEGO set, or at least their first LEGO set since childhood. They are targeting different demographics of non-LEGO fans and I don't think TLG intends for the same individual to buy more than one or maybe two of them.
This is absolutely beautiful!!! I would love to buy one, but my budget says no. It looks gorgeous though!!!
My wife might even allow this in the living room!
This has been my wife's absolute favorite painting since long before I met her. I'm planning on getting this for her birthday this summer. I'm gonna finally see if I can spark some interest in LEGO in her haha
Beautiful. Absolutely awesome.
Doesn't fully capture the original painting for me personally. It's missing those essential directional brush strokes. The flat brick on brick background is a real miss. For what it is it looks fine though and I love the 3D element of it
I guess I'll be getting this month's GWPs after all!
Wow! I don't know if it's the lack of sleep from getting up for the Ulysses probe or what, but that is really amazing!
Although not for me, this is fantastically done. Congrats to the designer(s)!
Absolutely stunning model, this - won't be grabbing it day one as Optimus takes priority, but will definitely be coming back to it at some point in the future!
This is something I want to build so bad but not too keen on owing it.
Lovely. The build captures the essence of the painting delightfully well, and it hadn’t even occurred to me there might be a van Gogh minifigure but it really adds to the set’s appeal.
Oh goody, another £150 set to buy!!!
Top tier!
I like the addition of the frame and do like the set, but there was a charming messiness the submission had that was lost in the process of making it official.
My Recommended listening while building this would be "Vincent" by Don McLean.
Good song for an awesome build!
Does this competition already started? I can't find it.
And in your heads your are all mispronouncing Van Gogh :P
This looks amazing, I really like the included minifig too!
3 words: FAN TAS TIC !
@florian00777 said:
"Doesn't fully capture the original painting for me personally. It's missing those essential directional brush strokes. The flat brick on brick background is a real miss. For what it is it looks fine though and I love the 3D element of it "
I totally agree!
Ooh, pretty! I'm not really into Lego Art pieces, but this does look incredible; very nice work on the part of the designers!
Apotheosis of Lego for Adults. My stepmom used to do paint-by-numbers, and this is pretty much offers that same experience, in Lego form. Not my particular preference, but I'm not here to yuck your yum, I'll just be curious how deep this niche runs.
I want it!
Not an art lover but this is amazing.
Did I miss something, or is the night sky mini build competition not open to US participation?
I was getting all excited to try my hand at something, but then read the country list…
Not interested at all... Except for the minifig.
@Reinier said:
"And in your heads your are all mispronouncing Van Gogh :P"
I’ve been to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Pretty sure I’m pronouncing his name correctly.
Besides, he lived in London for a while. His name was probably mispronounced all the time, but it didn’t bother him enough to be mentioned in any of his correspondence.
Another piece to add to the “must have” list. I think it’s awesome. Love the way the painting is interpreted, I like the frame, and I was not expecting the minifigure AT ALL. It is the exclamation point on yet another spectacular Ideas set.
Ideas is, at least to me, the most delightful and inspiring theme in the catalogue.
Epic! Must have, hopefully the current promos will still be available the 25th...
@Zander said:
" @Reinier said:
"And in your heads your are all mispronouncing Van Gogh :P"
I’ve been to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Pretty sure I’m pronouncing his name correctly."
So you have been in Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and this make you as skilful in Dutch as native Dutch, who is the author of the comment you are responding to?
Poor Vinnie doesn’t have any ears to cut off…
@Reinier said:
"And in your heads your are all mispronouncing Van Gogh :P"
How accurate is this to your ear?
https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&text=van%20gogh&op=translate
It helped me to have someone pronounce his name natively when visiting art museums (coincidentally, for me it happened to be on a visit to MoMA in New York).
I would say I want it, but I thought I heard rumor of $150...$170 is even harder to swallow. I will have to think about it for a while.
Otherwise it looks really neat. The colors stand out. It resembles the brushstrokes well enough. Not sure what a few others are noticing I guess. Oh well, we all have our own opinions.
@parsom said:
" @Zander said:
" @Reinier said:
"And in your heads your are all mispronouncing Van Gogh :P"
I’ve been to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Pretty sure I’m pronouncing his name correctly."
So you have been in Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and this make you as skilful in Dutch as native Dutch, who is the author of the comment you are responding to?"
Pretty sure the poster was referring to the common but gross mispronunciations of Van Gogh in both British and American English. Having been to the museum in Amsterdam and heard many Dutchmen pronounce it correctly, I'm pretty sure I'm on target. One of them even complimented me on the accuracy of my pronunciation. It's not like Dutch is that hard for native English speakers to get their tongues around. Not like the tones of the Chinese languages!
Pick your palette blue and grey, look out on a summer's day with eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
This set is the first I saw of the 3x3 inside corner roof tile (Design 99301) - it's been around since 2011 but hasn't been as prominently visible as it is in this frame.
A lot more pieces and detail than I was expecting making a great 3D picture which looks fairly challenging to build, although I would have to weigh up price against indifferent to picture.
So I am left wondering what other more cheerful art works are out there that would also work as well?