#artistic-license

#artistic-license

Audiences are generally used to a little bending of the truth with most historical fiction. Matt Damon's character in Air never drove to Michael Jordan's family home before signing the young basketball player to Nike. I doubt that Napoleon ever oinked at Josephine like she does in Ridley Scott's 2023 film, and I don't think random soldiers on the battlefield during the American Civil War in Lincoln were learned to recite the Gettysburg Address by heart.

To begin with the obvious, the stars of the depicted Plough (or Big Dipper) would never look quite so prominent, even in the relatively muted artificial light of 19th-century Arles. In the actual sky, the Plough points to the North Star, so these stars would have appeared behind Van Gogh when he was looking south at the view towards the centre of Arles.