A new study examining Van Gogh’s masterpiece “The Starry Night” reveals that the painting is not only beautiful, but its representation also conforms to the laws of nature. By capturing the turbulence of the night sky, the artist depicts the complex and dynamic forces of the atmosphere with scientific precision.
A scientific study of one of Vincent van Gogh's most famous paintings Expose toand it turns out that starry nightWhich presents a vision of the night sky, is a realistic depiction of atmospheric turbulence. The sky is almost moving in the painting, and Van Gogh's brushstrokes can be scientifically analyzed.
By AIP Publishing A Fluid physics In a study published in the journal, Chinese and French researchers analyzed paintbrush strokes, and it appears that the size of the paint splatters plays a crucial role.
During the study, the size of the brush strokes was measured and compared to metrics from perturbation theories.
They also examined the brightness of the painting, the relative brightness of the colors, to represent the characteristic kinetic energy of atmospheric turbulence.
By changing the brightness seen on the canvas, they were able to draw a parallel between the painter’s features and the energy flow of real atmospheric systems. The team focused on analyzing the 14 vortices in the painting to see if they followed the energy transfer patterns observed in natural turbulent flows.
Specifically, they wanted to see if the image was consistent with Kolmogorov's law, a theory that describes how kinetic energy decreases in turbulent atmospheric systems. The analysis revealed that a starry night This is indeed the case.
Therefore, the representation of the swirling night sky follows the same rules that govern atmospheric motion.
Within the smallest lines of paint, where light propagates through the fabric, the researchers found evidence of Batchelor scaling. This describes how energy behaves in small-scale disturbances, where temperature or pollutant concentration follow similar energy laws as in large-scale flows.
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