Researchers Trace Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ to a Specific Dark Sky in 1889

The storied Starry Night that has mesmerized countless eyes since Vincent van Gogh painted it may have been cribbed from an actual night sky over France in July 1889.

As reported by the Associated Press, “A South Korean team reported Thursday that after years of forensic astronomy and research into the Dutch artist, they have matched his masterpiece to a predawn sky over France’s Saint-Remy de Provence right around July 22, 1889. That’s a month later than the long-accepted time frame for the postimpressionist painting depicting a crescent moon and Venus surrounded by a sky of swirling stars with a village nestled below and cypress trees looming on one side.”

The Starry Night had long been thought to allude to a night in June, the month after Van Gogh checked himself into a psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in the wake of famously cutting off his ear in December 1888. But, per the AP, “a team led by Elijah Jeong-hyun Kim, the CEO of a Seoul telescope maker, is now disputing that date in a study appearing in the journal Scientific Reports.”

“No two skies are the same,” Kim told the AP in an email. “Something always changes. I believe Vincent noticed those changes and put them into the painting. I am confident that July 22 is the better date. I will bet on this date.”

Another researcher who has studied the painting described the claim as “an intriguing hypothesis rather than a settled answer,” but Kim considers it concrete after having studied evidence including astronomical charts as well as mention of cicadas (insects most active in the depths of summer) in letters written by Van Gogh.

Kim also noted having never seen The Starry Night in its most singular form at MoMA in New York. “Now that the paper is out,” he said, “I really have to go and see The Starry Night in person, don’t I?”