Actually, most of the elements in Starry Night weren't in the same place at all! It was one of van Gogh's few (if only, that I know of) paintings that really touched on the idea of painting from the imagination, something his bff Gauguin was very much a proponent of, instead of en plein air - "in the open air", like taking an easel and plonking it down outside and painting what you see, which is what van Gogh primarily did.

That's what fascinates me about this painting. No landscape like this exists in real life, which was a really strange thing for him to do. The tree, the town, and the moon were all elements he observed separately, then later combined into Starry Night. Even the town - the church, in particular, is reminiscent of the steepled churches where he grew up, instead of the domed church the French town had. The tree in the foreground, a cypress, was a frequent subject of his paintings. They're associated with death. He painted them a lot near the end of his life. Oh, and if you were wondering about the moon, because I forgot to mention that, it wasn't a crescent moon when this was painted. It really makes you wonder why he specifically chose all of these elements.

The combination of all of the aforementioned things reminds me of one of my favorite van Gogh quotes:

... to look at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots of a map representing towns and villages. Why, I ask myself, should the shining dots of the sky not be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? If we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star. One thing undoubtedly true in this reasoning is this: that while we are alive we cannot get to a star, any more than when we are dead we can take the train.

I've always thought that played into his choice of subject(s) in this painting. van Gogh also mentioned his philosophy about the stars in September of the year previous (1888), when he painted his second "starry night" painting - his first attempt was Cafe Terrace at Night. He had it in his mind to paint the perfect "starry night" painting, but wasn't pleased with the cafe painting (not enough sky), so his second try was Starry Night over the Rhone. Quite possibly my favorite painting of his. When he wrote to his brother about Starry Night Over the Rhone, he said:

It does me good to do difficult things. It does not prevent me from having a terrible need of, shall I say the word - of religion - then I go outside in the night to paint the stars and I dream ever of a picture like this with a group of lively figures of our pals.

Was Starry Night his attempt to share this philosophy with the world? His melancholy pondering of his rapid decline in health? I've spent a lot of time thinking about these things, and I hope now that you know more about the history of his most famous painting, you do too.