Claim: Van Gogh’s 'The Starry Night' does not follow real science rules

The deep blue sky, the glowing moon, the hypnotic swirls – Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” remains one of the most recognizable paintings in the world.

It invites awe and interpretation, blending emotion with abstraction. For over a century, people have tried to explain its magic.

Some view it as a window into van Gogh’s troubled mind. Others see a poetic depiction of nature’s grandeur. More recently, however, some physicists saw something else – a possible connection to fluid turbulence.

This surprising scientific claim stirred both fascination and debate. Could an artist from the 19th century have intuitively captured a concept that physicists only formalized in the 20th?

A 2024 paper suggested exactly that. But not everyone agrees.

In fact, leading experts in fluid mechanics say the science behind that interpretation does not hold up. While the painting’s beauty remains unquestioned, its connection to turbulence theory might not be as real as it seems.

Modern theory meets “The Starry Night”

In June 1889, van Gogh painted “The Starry Night” while residing at an asylum in southern France. He looked out at the pre-dawn sky and transformed what he saw into a masterpiece.

Today, the painting lives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Its swirls and curls have inspired poets, painters, and now – physicists.

A study published in Physics of Fluids claimed that the painting’s swirling sky resembled patterns found in real turbulent flows. Specifically, the paper argued that van Gogh’s eddies followed Kolmogorov’s theory of turbulence.

This theory, created by Soviet mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov, describes how energy moves through swirling fluids like air or water.

According to the paper, “[van Gogh] was able to reproduce not only the size of whirls/eddies, but also their relative distance and intensity in his painting.”

The idea fascinated many. Was van Gogh unknowingly visualizing chaos in a scientifically accurate way?

Starry Night turbulence claim is wrong

Not so fast, say Mohamed Gad-el-Hak of Virginia Commonwealth University and James J. Riley of the University of Washington.

These two experts in turbulence and fluid mechanics studied the painting too. Their conclusion? The original analysis is deeply flawed. Their own paper, published in the Journal of Turbulence, presents a detailed rebuttal.

“The Kolmogorov theory, which is named for the 20th-century Soviet mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov, is perhaps the most famous theory in turbulence research,” said Gad-el-Hak.

This theory applies to how velocity behaves in fluids – how fast the particles move and interact. But that’s not all.

Later, researchers like Alexander Obukhov and Stanley Corrsin expanded the theory to cover scalar properties – things like pressure, temperature, and fluid density. These properties, however, must be measurable within the flow.

Both Gad-el-Hak and Riley studied under Corrsin at Johns Hopkins University. Their background gave them a clear understanding of what the theory requires and how it works in real-world systems.

Starry Night has no real data

The biggest issue lies in what the painting lacks. “Our foundational objection … is that there is no identifiable, measurable scalar fluid property in the painting that can be used to apply the theory of Obukhov and Corrsin,” Riley explained.

In other words, “The Starry Night” is a visual work. It contains no real data. There is no way to measure air pressure, temperature, or any other property that turbulence theory needs.

Even more, the paper assumes an atmospheric flow field behind the painting. But Gad-el-Hak and Riley argue that this imagined flow does not match the conditions required by Kolmogorov’s framework.

“The atmospheric flow field assumed does not even closely satisfy the assumptions required of the theory,” Riley added.

So while the swirls may appear turbulent, they lack the scientific foundation to truly represent turbulence.

Van Gogh’s genius is artistic, not scientific

Gad-el-Hak and Riley don’t dismiss the painting’s brilliance. In fact, they admire it deeply. But they urge people to separate science from symbolism.

“The painting is fascinating and very abstract,” they wrote, “and in fact this is an element of what makes it such an iconic work of art.”

Van Gogh’s swirling skies stir emotion. They may even remind viewers of natural forces like wind or water. But the beauty lies in suggestion, not simulation.

There is no hidden physics waiting to be decoded. Instead, there is an artist who poured his mind onto canvas in ways that defy simple explanation.

Science and art often intersect, but not every brushstroke needs a formula. “The Starry Night” remains a masterpiece – not because it mimics turbulence, but because it captures something deeper, something purely human.

The study is published in the Journal of Turbulence.

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