Researchers say that the iconic painting's swirling sky lines up with Kolmogorov's theory of turbulence, suggesting that the artist was a careful observer of the world around him

A new study suggests Vincent van Gogh showed a deep, intuitive understanding of the mathematical structure of turbulence in his painting “The Starry Night.”

As a result, one can look at "The Starry Night" and see a scientifically accurate representation of turbulent, cascading waters — a visual that may have directly inspired van Gogh before he transposed those dynamics into his iconic starry sky while painting in his mental asylum room in the French town of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.