In 1994, Arman began creating variations on his ‘trapped brushes’ series, inspired by his favourite painting, Vincent van Gogh’s "The Starry Night". The artist explains: “For me, this is a return to my roots, an exercise in style, the emergence of determination and discipline.
“I believe that artists often choose one or more masters from the past – from their own past – to reinterpret, in their own way, one or more of these masters’ masterpieces,”
“Dazzled at a very young age by the revelation of Van Gogh’s work, I have never recovered from it, and amongst Vincent’s various masterpieces I have chosen The Starry Night for my own pleasure and for this project.”
Of all the paintings in this series, "La grande nuit" stands out as a masterpiece, a painting in front of which Arman had his photograph taken on numerous occasions and which, from the moment of its creation, has always remained in his personal collection and subsequently in that of his daughter.