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van gogh

Education

In 125 years, millions of people have looked at this painting. No one really saw it until recently.

Van Gogh saw something it took scientists another 100 years to see.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Van Gogh’s Starry Night.


Van Gogh never got to enjoy his own historic success as an artist (even though we've been able to imagine what that moment might have looked like). But it turns out that those of us who have appreciated his work have been missing out on some critical details for more than 100 years.

I'm not easily impressed, OK?

I know Van Gogh was a genius. If the point of this were "Van Gogh was a mad genius," I would not be sharing this with you.

But I found this and I thought, "Oh, what a vaguely interesting thing." And then I got to the part about the Hubble Space Telescope, and, let me tell you: Mind. Blown.

We've got the set up here, but you have to watch the video for the full effect. It's all the way at the bottom.

Get this: Van Gogh was a pretty cool artist (duh), but as it turns out...

painting, science, psychotic

What’s the truth behind when you take off an ear?

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...he was also A SCIENTIST!*

*Pretty much.

Here's the story.

While Van Gogh was in an asylum in France, after he mutilated his ear during a psychotic episode*...

(*Or, and I'd like to thank the entire Internet for pointing this out, there's a theory that his friend Paul Gauguin actually cut off his ear, in a drunken sword fight, in the dark. The more you know!)

science, premonition, predictions

Animated a thinking one-eared Van Gogh.

All Van Gogh GIFs via TED-Ed.

...he was able to capture one of science's most elusive concepts:

~~~TURBULENCE~~~

research, studied, proof, genius

Animated "Starry Night."

assets.rebelmouse.io

turbulence, fluid dynamics, energy cascade

Turbulence expressed through art.

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Although it's hard to understand with math (like, REALLY HARD), it turns out that art makes it easy to depict how it LOOKS.

So what is turbulence?

Turbulence, or turbulent flow, is a concept of fluid dynamics where fluid movements are "self-similar" when there's an energy cascade — so basically, big eddies make smaller eddies, and those make even smaller ones ... and so on and so forth.

It looks like this:

figures, explanation, education, community

Pictures explain science.

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See? It's easier to look at pictures to understand it.

Thing is, scientists are pretty much *just* starting to figure this stuff out.

reference, research, wisdom

Animation of referencing art to science.

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Then you've got Van Gogh, 100 years earlier, in his asylum, with a mutilated ear, who totally nailed it!

illumination, luminance, pulsing

Science studying Van Gogh.

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The folks who noticed Van Gogh's ability to capture turbulence checked to see whether other artists did the same. Most impressionists achieved " luminance" with their art (which is the sort-of *pulsing* you see when you look at their paintings that really shows what light looks like).

But did other artists depict turbulence the way Van Gogh did?

NOPE.

The Scream, historical, popular, famous

Animated “The Scream."

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Not even "The Scream" could hold a candle to Van Gogh!

technology, star turbulence, sky, astronomy

Capturing concepts of nature.

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Even in his darkest time, Van Gogh was able to capture — eerily accurately — one of nature's most complex and confusing concepts ... 100 years before scientists had the technology to observe actual star turbulence and realize its similarity to fluid turbulence mathematics as well as Van Gogh's swirling sky. Cool, huh?

Watch the video below to learn even more:

This article originally appeared on 11.14.14

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Gallery experts shocked to find an unseen Van Gogh painting hiding behind one of his works

It was found during an X-ray.

via Wikimedia Commons

The Scottish National Gallery.

The National Galleries of Scotland made an incredible announcement on July 14. Experts at the Edinburgh gallery discovered a self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh after taking an X-ray of his 1885 painting "Head of a Peasant Woman."

To find another painting by Dutch master Vincent Van Gogh 132 years after his death is an incredible discovery not only for the art world, but humanity. It’s like digging up a hidden track by the Beatles, a secret notebook by Isaac Newton or unreleased poems by Langston Hughes.

"Hidden from view for over a century, the self-portrait is on the back of the canvas with Head of a Peasant Woman and is covered by layers of glue and cardboard," the museum said in a statement.

The discovery is historic but it makes sense given the fact that Van Gogh was known for using both sides of a canvas to save money. The artist only sold one painting in his lifetime and became famous after his death in 1890 at the age of 37. He would go on to become one of the most influential painters in Western art history.

Lesley Stevenson, the gallery’s senior conservator, says that she felt “shock” to “find the artist looking at us,” she told the BBC. "When we saw the X-ray for the first time, of course we were hugely excited."

The Edinburgh gallery describes the painting as "a bearded sitter in a brimmed hat with a neckerchief loosely tied at the throat. He fixes the viewer with an intense stare, the right side of his face in shadow and his left ear clearly visible."

Even though it will take countless hours of delicate restoration for the new painting to be separated from "Head of a Peasant Woman," the museum has a good idea of what it looks like thanks to the X-ray image.

Van Gogh famously cut off his ear in 1888, two years before his death, and in what is presumed to be a self-portrait, the artist’s ear is still attached to his head. He lopped off the lower part of his ear during a bout of depression while staying in Arles, France. He later documented the experience in a painting titled, “Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.”

“Later in date than the Head of a Peasant Woman, the hidden painting is likely to have been made during a key moment in Van Gogh’s career, when he was exposed to the work of the French impressionists after moving to Paris,” the gallery wrote on its blog.

Museum visitors will be able to see an X-ray of the image in a lightbox at a new exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery entitled, “A Taste for Impressionism: Modern French Art from Millet to Matisse.”

"Moments like this are incredibly rare," Frances Fowle, a senior curator at the National Galleries of Scotland, said according to ABC News. "We have discovered an unknown work by Vincent Van Gogh, one of the most important and popular artists in the world."

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Van Gogh's paintings come to life at this incredible art museum. Come take a tour.

Do you remember your last trip to an art museum?

If we're talking typical art museum, you probably walked around an expansive but sterile space, looked at some pretty paintings from a respectful distance, then went to the gift shop to buy a magnet of one of those paintings for your fridge. Okay, I may be personalizing that last part a bit, but you get what I'm saying. On the whole, a day at an art museum can be lovely, but it's often not terribly memorable.

Perhaps that's one reason why museum attendance has been steadily declining across the United States since the early 2000s, especially among the younger demographic. Another might be that, since technology satisfies most of our entertainment whims in the comfort of our homes, it takes something truly extraordinary to motivate us to leave them.

But what if you could literally step into a painting and experience it all around you a la "Mary Poppins"? Something like that would surely be worth the trek.

The Van Gogh exhibit at The Carrières de Lumières Workshop of Lights. Photo via E. Spiller/Culturespaces. Used with permission.

That's exactly what The Carrières de Lumières, an art center in the south of France, is offering as part of a new series of art installations it's doing in collaboration with Culturespaces.

The exhibition, called Atelier des Lumières or "Workshop of Lights," takes the art of well-known artists and styles and creates a totally immersive experience by blanketing the space's 75,000 square feet and 50 foot-hight walls with it.

Right now, and through January 5th, 2020, you can wander through the mesmerizing, and often chaotic world of Vincent Van Gogh.

Photo via Culturespaces/E. Spiller.

When patrons enter the space, they go on a journey through the different stages of Van Gogh's creative life, which anyone who's seen his work before knows varied significantly.  "The immersive exhibition evokes Van Gogh's inordinate, chaotic and poetic inner world and emphasizes a permanent dialogue between shadow and light," the press release for the exhibit notes.

At this exhibit, you can actually walk through his "Wheatfield with Crows" and see the wind rustling the stalks.

Photo via Culturespaces/E. Spiller.

Or watch his "Almond Blossoms" rustling in the trees.

Photo via Gianfranco Iannuzzi/Culturespaces.

Then follow them as they blow off into the wind.

Photo via Culturespaces/E. Spiller.

You can be totally enveloped by his "Irises."

Photo via Culturespaces/E. Spiller.

And stroll past actual lapping waters in his "Starry Night Under the Rhone."

Photo via Culturespaces/E. Spiller.

Don't worry, his most famous "Starry Night" is there, too. In fact, it's the star of the show.

Photo via Culturespaces/E. Spiller.

Photo via Culturespaces/E. Spiller.

Photo via Culturespaces/E. Spiller.

If all that wasn't cool enough, the exhibit also has an incredible musical component that takes the experience to a whole other level.

You're basically getting a trip to an unforgettable museum and a trip to the symphony all at once. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more culture-filled experience.

Now while you do have to book a flight to the south of France to witness this immersive exhibit, based on the praise from patrons who've already visited, it's well worth the trip. Plus you'll be in Provence afterwards which isn't too shabby a place to spend a few days.

However, if you (understandably) can't swing an international trip, there are plenty of awesome interactive exhibits and museums you can check out in the states instead. Here are just a few:

Visual art can take on so many different forms, and, thanks to technology and innovation, artists today are busting through the limitations of previous generations. If you step outside your comfort zone and support them, the experience will no doubt leave a lasting impact and remind you that some things are worth leaving the house for.

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