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Aha. Don Olson is at it again... Thanks for the heads-up, Dave W.!

Here's a link to the online viewer for the article. It's paywalled, but there's a feature that will allow you to read nearly all of the article [a feature that the editors will presumably turn off when they realize what it does]. In the screen capture below, you can get a hint of it. If you can puzzle out how I created the image, you can read the whole article.

At the brief wikipedia page for this painting, you can see a low-quality image of the original van Gogh work. I would have to say that Don Olson may have reached the bottom of the barrel when it comes to van Gogh's work. This one is a minor van Gogh work, and it is a trivial astronomical problem which could have been worked out at any time in the past century (within the decades since van Gogh achieved his posthumous fame). Of note, the "solvability" of this puzzle depends on very basic astronomy. Yes. Nothing to it! But it also depends critically on something not explicitly called out in the article: the excellent quality of historical mapping in the Netherlands and the availability of those records to modern researchers [for example see this wonderful website]. Without such detailed maps, this analysis would have been hopeless.

It's a shame Olson doesn't have access to a time machine! He could go visit van Gogh and other artists and view the original astronomical scenes in-person. When I finish my time machine, I'll go back in time and give him the plans. :) But while you're waiting for history to change, if you haven't seen it, go find that episode of Doctor Who from 2010 entitled "Vincent and the Doctor". There's a rather pointless "monster of the week" (because... it's Doctor Who) but watch the rest of it, especially the last few minutes. Bring a friend to share it with! You'll want one when you see the end. :)

Frank Reed

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