Is Vincent Van Gogh " Starry Night " painting an abstract or representational ? Explain why

Dear Nicole Nicole,

From my experience, your question does not really compute...so please look over my answer to discern what your instructor is really trying to ask...

...because ALL abstract art is representational; that is, no matter how illusory, still based on a recognizable reality you will find here in the world of time and space - even a Picasso with three eyes and your arm coming out of your head.

The breakthrough from abstract into non-representational art was in the 1950's, and two masters were Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko; pure ideation, rhythm, meditation.

So Van Gogh STARRY NIGHT still represents a night sky, but Post-Impressionism he is beginning to abstract; introducing metaphorical, mythical dimensions a camera does not capture - for example the sky-spiral formations found throughout nature in everything from a seashell to an opening bud to a galaxy.

Here is a Jackson Pollock, also a Rothko; these are considered truly non-representational.

I agree with Virginia ....it's an "abstract representation" of the night sky. 

If I had to choose one word from the two you gave in your question, I would choose "representational" over "abstract",  but that's really not accurate- but it was the only two choices you gave. 

The real answer is that it's Both (as Virginia so beautifully pointed out).

Van Gogh was an impressionist. The Starry Night was mostly based on his view from his room at an asylum during the early morning hours.  The sky portion is what he saw. The village though is not something found in France, but is something more akin to Van Gogh's home country of Denmark. The fig tree in the painting wasn't actually there but was used to tie the rolling hills in with the rolling sky.

It definitely isn't an abstract, so I would have to say a representation. It represents the sky he was seeing, the town of his younger life, a tree his solitary existence away from those things.