The Secret of Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”

Scientists at Kyung Hee University in South Korea have identified similarities between the arrangement of stars in Vincent van Gogh’s famous painting “The Starry Night” and the Hyades star cluster.

The research suggests a high probability that the great artist depicted a real natural phenomenon observed in the sky at dawn on July 22, 1889.

Previously, art researchers had associated the stars in the painting with the constellation Aries, but this hypothesis had not been fully confirmed scientifically.

Astronomer Elijah Jeong Hyun Kim suggested that five stars in the center of the composition correspond to the V-shaped Hyades cluster, which belongs to the constellation Taurus.

On July 22, 1889, the Hyades and Venus rose together in the eastern sky, while the Moon appeared as a crescent, just as it does in the painting. On the previously accepted date of June 18 — based on a letter the artist wrote to his brother Theo — the Moon was in a waning gibbous phase, which does not fully match its appearance in the artwork.

To test the hypothesis, the researchers travelled to Saint-Rémy, France, and precisely determined the observation point from which Van Gogh viewed the sky. They then used the mathematical Procrustes method to compare the size, direction and position of the objects.

The study confirmed that the five stars in the artist’s original sketch closely match the Hyades.

The scientists also applied the same method to Van Gogh’s 1888 painting “Café Terrace at Night” and suggested that the stars depicted there may represent the “Summer Triangle” — Vega, Deneb and Altair.

The researchers plan to use the same scientific method to study other paintings by Van Gogh in the future.