The Physics of Van Gogh

 

Vincent van Gogh painted “the starry night.” It is an explosion of color and shapes. Each star in the painting is encapsulated in yellow, with variances in the luminosity of the paint.

It’s illusion of the sky is so realistic, it has lead researchers around the world to compare it to the physics of real skies. Brushstrokes can be measured, the atmospheric motion of a painting cannot.

Researchers of marine sciences and fluid dynamics in both China and France have published in Physics of Fluids. They have analyzed the Van Gogh painting to reveal hidden turbulence in the painter’s recreation of the sky.

The author is a man named Yongxiang Huang. He reports, “ The scale of the paint strokes played a crucial role. With a high resolution digital picture, we were able to measure precisely the typical size of the brushstrokes and compare these to the scales expected from turbulence theories.”

Researchers revealed hidden turbulence in the brushstrokes by comparing shape, energy and atmospheric conditions inside the painting. They used brightness or luminescence. They compared varying colors that expressed physical movement.

Huang reports, “It reveals a deep and intuitive understanding of natural phenomena. Van Gogh’s precise representation of turbulence might be from studying the movement of clouds in the atmosphere, or an innate sense of how to capture the dynamism of the sky.” 

The study observed the 14 main shapes to see if they align with the cascading energy theory. This theory describes the kinetic energy transfer from large to small turbulent flows. 

The scientists revealed that overall the painting aligns with Kolmogorov’s law. This predicts atmospheric movements and scale, according to an object’s measured inertial energy.

Researchers also found that Bachelor’s scaling is involved. This describes energy laws in small scale, passive scale or turbulence, following atmospheric movement. Both of these scaling in one atmospheric system is quite rare. And it was a big reason why the research first began.

“ Turbulence is believed to be one of the intrinsic properties of high Reynolds flows dominated by inertia, but recently turbulence like phenomena has been reported for different types of flow systems at a wide range of spatial scales, with low Reynolds numbers where viscosity is more dominant.”

“ It seems it is time to propose a new definition of turbulence to embrace more situations,” summarizes Huang. 

An interesting study and a beautiful work of art! 

(It’s been a rough week. A fun article for your Friday. 💕🌹)

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