If van Gogh’s The Starry Night Depicts Perfect Turbulence, So Should Degas’ A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers

Speaker: Daniel Bourgault

Abstract: A recent study suggests that the sky of van Gogh’s The Starry Night accurately depicts the intrinsic and complex structure of real, fully developed turbulent flows. This conclusion was reached by comparing the slope of the power spectral density of the image to Kolmogorov’s famous −5/3 law of turbulence. In this essay, we show that this correspondence is coincidental and anecdotal and argue that examining the spectral slope alone is not sufficient to state whether or not a painting, or any other type of image, accurately reflects Kolmogorov-like turbulence. Otherwise, we would be forced to conclude that Degas’ A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers also accurately depicts turbulence.