This Vincent van Gogh painting has long been shrouded
in mystery. It looks like a sunset but is titled "Moonrise." And unlike many of
the Dutch master's works, the date he dashed this one off has been unknown, though
it's confined to a five-month period in 1889.
Donald Olson, Russell Doescher and Marilynn Olson of Southwest Texas State
University dug into the mystery. They went to the Saint-Paul monastery in Saint-Rémy,
France, to look for the scene. The mountains and an overhanging cliff were evident.
Trees had overgrown the area, but they eventually found the house that's depicted
in the work.
"We can line everything up," Olson said. "The key is that the Moon is behind that overhanging cliff."
A sunset would have occurred in the opposite direction. Lunar tables and astronomy
software revealed there were only two days during van Gogh's stay at the monastery
when the Moon would have risen in that location -- May 16 and July 13.
The final clue is the harvested wheat in the painting. "It can’t be May," Olson said. "He has two [other] paintings of that field in May, and they’re lush green."
The painting must have been conceived at 9:08 p.m., the researchers conclude, and was probably painted at the same time, since van Gogh is known for wanting his subjects at hand. The findings are detailed in the July issue of Sky & Telescope magazine.
