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Van Gogh... the Astronomer
chrissam writes "The Boston Globe is running a cool article about Vincent Van Gogh and the incredible astronomical accuracy in his depictions of heavenly objects in the night sky. An astronomy class from Southwest Texas State University have been able to pinpoint the exact date and time a recently discovered Van Gogh painting was done - 7pm, June 16, 1890 - based on the location of the painting's subject and the position of Venus in the night sky." The result is perhaps mundane - when a painting was painted is not earth-shattering news. But the process involved is fascinating.
The thing a lot of people don't know about art is how incredibly rooted in science and natural understanding it was (I say was, because the last half of the 20th century has moved away from this). Artists grew up keenly studying nature to try to understand natural aesthetics, and developed a set of unwritten standards that are used in virtually all masterpiece paintings. While we may associate this binding of art and science only with Renaissance artists, the fact is it existed throughout art history, and art has always been about representing the world according to natural laws.
With that said, though, this painting probably wasn't painted on a specific date. It may represent a specific date, but paintings took months and months to prepare. For that one painting, van Gogh probably did no less than nine study paintings, each refining the position of every line, every stroke, and yes, the location of Venus. van Gogh could probably paint any sky he wanted to at any time he wanted to, and he would've known exactly where everything should be.
It's kind of sad, actually, that such knowledge (and training) has to be rediscovered, but such are the ways of history.
For those too lazy to use google, the painting in question can be found here.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
Scully: "But Mulder, how could a man like Van Gogh reproduce a perfect copy of the starscape at a given moment, when the painting would have taken hours, if not days, to paint?"
Mulder: "Maybe a man like Van Gogh...wasn't a MAN at all!"
Scully: "Are you suggesting...?"
Mulder: "Yes, Scully. Aliens, taking the form of Renaissance artists, visited 19th century Europe, bestowing on European civilisation the Impressionist school of art, in an attempt to destroy the Neo-Classical school, with its tendency towards historical paintings, thus to prevent any historical paintings recording their many visits to earth from being recorded"
Scully: "Yeah, I guess. You know I read in the National Inquirer that that Monet dude got anally probed..."