#1347 - Neil deGrasse Tyson

Joe Rogan (0:04)

Hello. Joe. t's going on man.

Good to see you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (0:08)

Thanks, thanks. I feel ereal overdressed. Sorry about this.

Joe Rogan (0:11)

Oh, look at that. Yeah, you're really into that huh?

Neil deGrasse Tyson (0:15)

Yeah, I got...

So, you remember. Yes, yes, it's on the phone. Starry Night. What I like about Starry Night, it's not what Van Gogh saw that night, it's what he felt.

Joe Rogan (0:30)

How do you know what he felt?

Neil deGrasse Tyson (0:31)

Because this is not a representation of reality. And anything that deviates from reality is reality that has filtered through your senses. And I think art at its highest is exactly that. If this was an exact depiction of reality, it would be a photograph and I don't need the artist.

So even photographs that take you to a slightly other kind of dimension as you gaze upon them, it's more than what was actually going on at the time. And that's art taken to the craft of photography.

Joe Rogan (1:05)

That's why you like it?

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1:06)

Yes, that's one of the reasons why. Plus, I think it was the very first painting where its title is the background.

Think about that.

This could have been called, you know, in the full painting, obviously, this is a snippet. A town. Yeah, so there's a town there, there's a cypress tree, there's a church steeple. It could have been called the cypress tree. It could have been called Sleepy Village. It could have been called Rolling Hills. But no, it's called Starry Night. And everything in front of it is just in the way.

And how often do you paint something where the title is the background? That's my point. And in this particular case, the background is the universe. And so for me, this was a pivot point in art. And it's 1889, which is recent, given the history of paintings that go all the way back. So yeah, there it is.

Joe Rogan (2:02)

Is that your favorite painting ever?

Neil deGrasse Tyson (2:04)

I have to say yes.

Joe Rogan (2:05)

You have a vest and a phone cover. If it's not, what are you doing?

Neil deGrasse Tyson (2:11)

Yeah, and I have four or five ties that have this painting on them in different ways, yeah. So I'm all in, I'm all in.

Joe Rogan (2:19)

What's interesting is that the town is...

Neil deGrasse Tyson (2:22)

Wait, wait, have you seen Starry Night in Bacon?

Somebody did, look, dig it up on the screen. Somebody did it in Bacon. It was just crazy.

Joe Rogan (2:30)

Oh God, how weird.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (2:34)

Yeah, so... Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:36)

How weird. Go back to the original one, please.

What's interesting about the original one is that the town is realistically depicted. The trees are recognizable as trees. If you ever saw a sky that looked like that, the end would be here.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (2:50)

Yeah, exactly. Plus, that swirling is not wind and it's not clouds because if it was clouds, you wouldn't see the stars.

Joe Rogan (2:58)

Right.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (2:59)

What is it?

It's how he felt. That's all I can tell you. By the way, that is a real evening, so that's... Sorry, it's early morning.

The crescent moon, when it's that orientation, means this is before sunrise. And that white object lower on the horizon that's sort of glowy, that's very likely Venus, and that enables us to trace over what set of weeks this painting was actually painted. So it's kind of like forensic astronomy.

Joe Rogan (3:26)

Has anyone done an analysis of where he must have been?

Neil deGrasse Tyson (3:30)

Yeah, yeah, it's well known. Yeah, he was in a real place.

Joe Rogan (3:32)

And so that really would be...

Neil deGrasse Tyson (3:33)

He didn't pull this out of his ass, right? I mean, it was... Right. He painted what he saw, folded into what he felt.

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (3:40)

Heavy.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (3:41)

That's how art should be, I think.

Joe Rogan (3:43)

Yeah?

Neil deGrasse Tyson (3:43)

Otherwise, what do you need artists for?

Joe Rogan (3:47)

Make cool shit.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (3:49)

The cool stuff is something that they felt, and it came out of them.

Joe Rogan (3:52)

Yeah.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (3:53)

And they feel stuff... Artists feel the natural world in ways different from the rest of us.

And that's why they're artists.

Joe Rogan (4:01)

Do they, or do they just express it with more...

Neil deGrasse Tyson (4:04)

Oh, sorry. Yes, they not only... Yes, we all can feel it, but to be able to express it, that's a whole other talent. And you know what I think about often?