Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night is one of the most iconic works of art ever produced – and now experts have discovered what the painting really shows.
Believed to depict a view from Van Gogh's window in Saint–Rémy–de–Provence, France, experts have been bitterly divided over whether the painting is a work of imagination or a real scene.
Now, a team of Korean researchers have finally settled the debate by pinpointing the precise night sky that inspired the legendary painter.
According to their calculations, published in Scientific Reports, The Starry Night shows the sky exactly as it was just before dawn on the night of July 22, 1889.
In the early hours of that night, the waning crescent moon, the planet Venus, and the Hyades star cluster in the constellation Taurus would have all been close together.
The sky in Van Gogh's celebrated painting is an almost exact match for that precise celestial arrangement.
A team of Korean researchers have finally settled the debate by pinpointing the precise night sky that inspired Van Gogh's The Starry Night (pictured)
The Starry Night is the most celebrated painting from Van Gogh's stay at the Saint–Paul–de–Mausole mental asylum.
Van Gogh had committed himself to the asylum in May after a serious mental breakdown, which famously involved cutting off part of his left ear.
These unusual circumstances have led the painting to be the centre of fervent speculation over its possible hidden meanings or symbolic content.
But the biggest puzzles have been to find out what exactly the painting really shows and, just as importantly, when it was painted.
Traditionally, the painting has been dated by a letter Van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, around June 18, 1889.
However, if The Starry Night does resemble the night sky as Van Gogh really saw it, then this date certainly isn't possible.
In early June, the moon would have been waning gibbous, which doesn't at all match the slim crescent depicted in the painting.
Likewise, previous art historians have identified the bright cluster of stars in the painting as Aries, but astronomers say this doesn't make sense.
Scientists started by looking at the night sky in Van Gogh's paintings, which have been accurately dated, including Café Terrace at Night (pictured)
Scientists discovered that the paintings did, in fact, accurately depict the night sky, with Café Terrace at Night showing a constellation called the summer triangle and Starry Night over the Rhône capturing the Big Dipper.
Lead author Elijah Jeong–hyun Kim, PhD candidate at Kyung Hee University and CEO of SLLAB, says: 'To an observational astronomer, the cluster of stars in The Starry Night is the Hyades in Taurus.'
First, the researchers looked at two of Van Gogh's night sky paintings that are dated very accurately thanks to an abundance of historical sources – Café Terrace at Night and Starry Night over the Rhône.
Using an astronomical model, the researchers were able to reconstruct the night sky as it would have been on the day those paintings were made, and compared it to Van Gogh's field of view.
They discovered that the paintings did, in fact, accurately depict the night sky, with Café Terrace at Night showing a constellation called the summer triangle and Starry Night over the Rhône capturing the Big Dipper.
Using these techniques, the researchers then turned to the question of when The Starry Night itself was painted.
During two trips to France in 2019, the researchers retraced Van Gogh's location to work out his exact view down over the town of Saint–Rémy.
Reconstructing the night sky for that period, they found that the stars would have been arranged just as they are in The Starry Night on July 22 – a month later than had previously been estimated.
Scientists travelled to Saint–Rémy–de–Provence, France, to work out the exact view Van Gogh would have had from the window of his room in the Saint–Paul–de–Mausole mental asylum (pictured)
Researchers found that The Starry Night matches the exact night sky that Van Gogh would have seen from his room in the early hours of July 22, 1889
Statistical analysis then confirmed the correspondence between the five central stars of The Starry Night and the Hyades, with an even closer match in the pen drawing Van Gogh made after the painting.
Checking the historical weather records, the researchers found that the sky that night would have been clear enough for Van Gogh to see such an astronomical arrangement.
Additionally, frequent mentions of cicadas in Van Gogh's letters suggest a period of hot weather, which better matches the temperature records for July.
This suggests that Van Gogh likely sketched the night sky as he saw it in the early hours of July 22, and then finished the final painting over the following days.
Mr Kim says: 'I hope this work prompts a renewed, multidisciplinary look at the sequence and working methods of the Saint–Rémy paintings, and at Van Gogh's movements that summer.
'Our conversation with Van Gogh's other skies is still ongoing. We plan to tell those stories one by one.'