“I declare that I know nothing about it. But again and again the sight of the stars makes me dream. »
“I have a terrible need for religion, so I go outside at night to draw the stars. »
These are two famous Vincent Van Gogh quotes from the famous letters to Theo Van Gogh, his brother.
Can they be compared with the contents of the Timaeus, the work in which the myth of Atlantis is debunked and in which Plato (about which Alfred North Whitehead in the early 20’s on the work of the founder of the Academy) reports that man, if he can see, “that by examining the circuits of eternal intelligence in heaven we may learn to control those of our minds which, notwithstanding the disorder of their movements, are of the same nature as these other well-ordered circuits, and directed by this spectacle to ours Giving thoughts the most regular direction that our nature allows, image of the divine circuits that do not deviate from their path, do we regulate those that deviate in us”?
The artistic and scientific vision of astronomy
As is well known, in another work, The Republic, Plato wanted to expel the poets from his city. On the one hand, that would mean very quickly forgetting that Plato himself worked on his texts like a writer with myths, but also in the training of philosophers at the top of his ideal city, like in the house of his friend and perhaps master like Socrates, the Pythagorean Archytas of Taranto, geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy are linked within philosophy. They partake in the ideas of beauty, harmony, measure, and reason, and have an intrinsic interest in themselves that goes beyond any possible practical application, even as they provide the key to a knowledge of the world. .
The ideas there are not only concepts, but also visions, emotions, states of consciousness, whose unity and common organic growth the Platonic dialectician grasps in the path of a Platonic philosopher.
There is little doubt, therefore, that from that point forward the most progressive minds understood that there was a deep connection in a realm of consciousness where aesthetics, even mysticism, and rational science are but facets of the same space. One cannot help but wonder at the suspicion of the existence of an unwritten enlightening teaching of Plato in his school.
And finally, isn’t that the reason for the success of Carl Sagan’s famous Cosmos series, which combines astronomy, science, pictures, drawings and music by Vangelis, undoubtedly modern echoes of Plato’s visions from this point of view?
Excerpt from the documentary “Vincent Van Gogh, the Evangelist” by Valérie Manuel and Annie Zorz (2000) with Jean-Pierre Luminet and Pascal Bonafoux. Music: Henri Dutilleux. We can see that Jean-Pierre Luminet has been concerned about the work of Van Gogh and its relation to astronomy for some time. © Jean Pierre Luminet
The Starry Nights by Vincent Van Gogh
Therefore, also the publication some time ago this year of a book dedicated to Jean-Pierre Luminet Vincent Van Gogh, published by Seghers, after the book dedicated to extraordinary and unusual stories of astronomers and the one entitled Black Holes in 100 Questions. Futura readers know that Jean-Pierre Luminet contributes to the Luminesciences blog provided to him by Futura by talking about science and poetry, astronomy and music, history and philosophy.
For a platonic philosopher or a Renaissance artist-engineer like Leonardo da Vinci, this mixture of genres is perfectly normal and it is not surprising that Jean-Pierre Luminet, although an astrophysicist, published by Odile Jacob in October 2020, a work, dedicated to the theories of quantum gravity, L’écume de l’espace-temps, has also published poetry and is also a draftsman and sculptor, but also a musician, as shown in his book Du piano aux étoiles, a musical autobiography. published on October 7, 2021 by Le Passeur Éditeur.
It’s not about the black holes seen by members of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, or the crumpled universes in The Starry Nights of Vincent Van Gogh, the work published by Seghers. Undoubtedly, the best way to present your content is to pick up on the publisher’s comments, as well as the interview that Jean-Pierre Luminet gave to Laurence Honnorat on his famous YouTube channel: Ideas in Science.
“On February 20, 1888, Vincent Van Gogh, the man from the north, moved to Arles at the age of 35. It’s winter, but he discovers the light of Provence that dazzles day and night. Amazed by the clarity of the firmament, the astronomy enthusiast was persuaded to start a new project: painting the sky. And even if the motif intimidates him, he would like to paint a starry sky above all. Because “the night is even more colorful than the day,” he writes. Some of his greatest masterpieces will emerge from this project: café terrace in the evening in Arles, The starry night on the Rhône, The starry night in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence…
Are the stars in these paintings random or do they correspond to a real configuration of the night sky? This question, which moves the art-loving writer and astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet, is not only a question of biographical curiosity, but also touches on the painter’s fundamental vision. Van Gogh always emphasized his desire to demonstrate a certain realism in the pictorial realization “I am enormously amused to paint the night on the spot … to paint the thing immediately,” he wrote in another letter. This debate (whether to paint from nature or from fantasy) is so serious that it gave rise to the quarrel between Gauguin and Van Gogh (and the subsequent mutilation of the ear and the latter’s fit of insanity).
Between biography, art history, scholarship and poetry, traveling to the exact places where Van Gogh painted, consulting the works of certain predecessors (mostly to contradict them), and using astronomical reconstruction software, Jean-Pierre Luminet conducted the investigation. Through cross-checks, he was able to determine that the sections of sky depicted in the paintings always corresponded to reality. But he also makes things more complex sometimes… for purely artistic reasons. Thus, as justified by Jean-Pierre Luminet with fascinating cleverness, Van Gogh sometimes uses montage or mixes precise observation, imagination and memory… Here too he overturned the canons and heralded the future developments of his art (towards Cubism, Surrealism , abstraction). Demonstrating this is not the least of the merits of this exciting little book. »
Jean-Pierre Luminet interviewed by Laurence Honnorat. © Ideas in Science