If you spend too much time with a piece of art, your romantic sense of it might give way to a nerdy, analytical mindset that brings you dangerously close to “um actually” levels of pedantry. Van Gogh’s Starry Night is one of the most famous paintings on Earth, and as such, it has led thousands, perhaps millions, of people to wonder what time of year it was painted. A team of researchers might have figured it out.
According to a study published in Scientific Reports led by astronomer Elijah Jeong-hyun Kim, the iconic painting that seems like it couldn’t have been set at any specific real-world time, and probably not even set on this planet, as it seems more like the gorgeously rendered imaginings of a brilliant artist, was probably set in July.
More specifically, van Gogh probably witnessed this scene and spun it into the legendary painting we know now while staring out of his asylum window in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence around dawn on July 22, 1889.
Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’ May Depict One Very Specific Morning in 1889
The new scientific analysis suggests that while van Gogh clearly took all the creative license afforded to an artist to create a beautiful bit of surreality, he likely based it on an underlying, visible astronomical truth. By reviewing historical weather logs, then going through letters in which he mentions summer cicadas several times, and analyzing the painting’s astronomical geometry with snazzy astronomical software, researchers found a historical match.
The alignment of the painting’s crescent moon, its depiction of Venus, and the V-shaped star cluster known as the Hyades fits the late July sky rather than the previously accepted June timeframe.
To test this theory, the researchers visited France to take all sorts of measurements, eventually confirming that celestial bodies would slot into the same spot they appear in the painting, as Van Gogh would have seen them through the asylum window.
Reps from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam have responded to the research, essentially saying that while all that may be well and good, we must always keep in mind that Van Gogh was out of his mind at the time, having had a severe mental breakdown sometime around July 22 that left him unable to paint for about a month.
Kim probably blended several early mornings into one painting, since Van Gogh didn’t start and finish it in one night. But maybe, with a more precise date than we’ve ever had, we can turn July 22 into an unofficial holiday, a starry-night day when we all collectively appreciate one of the most emotionally stirring paintings ever created.
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