A Lone Starry Night

I was working on a spiral flame and after a few gradient changes realized it had a similar motion to the skies in Starry Night. I had dreams of grandeur that I could actually duplicate the swirling of the stars and come up with a gradient that looked exactly like the sky. Originally this piece was rendered in landscape, but the gradient went all funky as the color traveled from right to left and the distribution of the large "stars" failed due to how spiral flames are formed. I realized I captured the spirit better in a cropped portrait layout if I focused mostly on the moon. After a ton of failed attempts, I managed to get a gradient with a similar feeling, but it's nowhere close to Starry Nights in colour or color distribution, much to my disappointment. Guess I've got to work on my Apo skillz...

So, uh, to answer you question, both, in a way.

You bet!