Express js cannot GET files in static directory – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

recently i tried to write an express js and node js server.
I have seen on the internet that in order to serve images, i have to set the static path using express.static. Only it does not seem to work, no matter what i try.

I have express installed both locally and globally.
I have tried to change the argument of express.static from “/public” to __dirname + "/public" or path.join(__dirname, "public")

This is my index.js:

const express = require("express")

const app = express()

app.get(express.static(__dirname + "/public"));


app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.sendFile(__dirname + '/public/index.html')
  })
  
  app.listen(3000, () => console.log('Listening!!'))

This is my index.html in /public/:

<html>
    <body>
        <img src="download.png" alt="">
    </body>
</html>

This is a scheme of the folders hierarchy:

/node/:
   ---> /node_modules/
        /public/:
             ---> index.html
                  download.png
        index.js
        package.json

And here is a screenshot of the result:
Result