MYTH OR REALITY IN “STARRY NIGHT” (1889). DID VINCENT VAN GOGH PAINT HIS MORBUS LOCI ? WHIRLPOOL GALAXY, HIPPOCAMPAL FORMATION OR JUST A PAINTBRUSH MOVE ?

Abstract

Vincent Van Gogh’s entire career has been marked by a variety of colors, which have undergone numerous changes: from gray to vivid colors. This is due to the multiple affections that the author acquires over the course of his life and the treatments adjacent to his affections. A special feature of his artistic life is tripartite nocturnal series during the time the artist was admitted to the Saint Paul Asylum. Nowadays this series of paintings are known around the world and listed at exorbitant prices. Much of the paintings made by the artist in the second half of his life have a common element about a representative geometric model, a brush motion. Long after the artist's death, art critics, doctors and ordinary viewers have associated this geometric model with the anatomy of the hippocampus. The previous idea was recently exposed by a group of authors in the article: Neuroanatomic Interpretation of the Painting Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. Our opinion after lengthy analyzes of the artist’s biography is that he did not have neuroanatomic knowledge and therefore the theory that Vincent Van Gogh painted his morbus loci cannot be sustained. A more likely explanation is that this brush movement (amplified by the pathology suffered by the painter) perfectly corresponds to astronomical elements discovered at that time, Whirlpool Galaxy described and drawn first by Sir William Parsons, 3^rd Earl of Rosse (1800-1867) in 1845. Conclusions: The details given by Van Gogh in the sky of Saint Remy are his visions as a painter and are unrelated to the anatomical structure of the hippocampus.