ASTRONOMERS have pinpointed the precise date and time when Vincent van Gogh
painted White House at Night. The extraordinary precision was made
possible by identifying a star in the sky as the planet Venus. The researchers
say it鈥檚 a fine example of the painter鈥檚 attention to detail.
The painting was hidden from Nazi looters in the 1930s and only re-emerged in
Russia in 1995. It shows a white house at twilight with a prominent yellow star
in the sky.
Only five of van Gogh鈥檚 pictures show the night sky, but astronomers have
been astounded by their accuracy. 鈥淚 was surprised his paintings have such a
strong basis in reality,鈥� says Donald Olson, an astronomer at Southwest Texas
State University in San Marcos.
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By running computer calculations Olson and colleague Russell Doescher figured
out that the bright star in White House At Night must be the planet
Venus, which was bright in the evening sky in June 1890, when van Gogh was
thought to have painted the picture. Olson previously noticed that van Gogh
painted Venus and other planets as stars with large yellow halos in other night
sky paintings.
Last summer Olson organised a field trip to the small town of
Auvers-sur-Oise, northwest of Paris, where his students located the white house
in the painting. From this Olson knew which way van Gogh was facing and so could
work out the time of day. He and Doescher believe the painting was painted from
the bottom up over the course of an afternoon and early evening. 鈥淵ou can see
it鈥檚 about 7 pm from the sunlight on the house but as the sun sets Venus becomes
bright and obvious,鈥� says Doescher. Venus was in the approximate position shown
in the painting at around 8 pm on 16 June 1890, just six weeks before the artist
killed himself. 鈥淲e can say exactly when he was painting,鈥� says Olson.