Vincent van Gogh painted "The Starry Night" while living in a mental hospital.

Van Gogh entered the asylum in May 1889 after several mental health crises. He painted "The Starry Night" in June of that year. Astronomers used historical data to confirm that Venus was visible in the morning sky at that exact time and location. The bright white circle near the cypress tree matches where Venus would have been.Physicists have studied the swirling patterns in the sky. These shapes look like turbulent fluid flow. This is a complex movement found in liquids and gases like air or water. Van Gogh captured these chaotic motions with his brushstrokes even though he was not a scientist.The village in the painting was not actually outside his window. He likely based it on his home country of the Netherlands. The dark cypress tree was a common symbol for mourning in the 1800s. Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo that he thought the painting was a failure. Today it is one of the most famous artworks in the world.