Maybe I’m stretching a point here, but I shot this image of a cut through the layers of rock on a large hill the other day while traveling through central Pennsylvania, and it almost immediately reminded me of the movement of paint in Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” I went and looked at “Starry Night” again and to me it had a similar banded and fluid structure. Obviously the colors were quite different between my photo and the Van Gogh painting, but there is still something familiar here. The layering and bending of the sediment in the rock photo and the curves of the paint in “Starry Night” seem to echo each other. I then went and looked at other works by Van Gogh that I haven’t looked at in a long time and found that there were some similar elements in other works too.
http://www.scriptgodsmustdie.com/wp-content/uploads/van-gogh_soleils.jpg

http://www.artinvest2000.com/van_gogh-wheat.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VDvPKFlYKJQ/TNhC9qAB-HI/AAAAAAAABtA/ucyoipE2ZXA/s1600/vangogh736px-Vincent_van_Gogh_%281853-1890%29_-_The_Olive_Trees_%281889%29.jpg

I also thought that the idea of strata was found in many of Georgia O'Keeffe’s landscape paintings of New Mexico.
Here are a few.
http://www.tfaoi.com/mn/mib/mib142.jpg

http://www.theroamingboomers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/6a00e54f9cbc5e88340120a537ff11970b-500wi.jpg

http://vhs.digitalarium.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Black-Mesa-Landscape.jpg

Here are a few works by other artists that use geologic strata as inspiration.
Christopher Blyth

CRISTINA DEL SOL

Peg Bachenheimer http://cdn.imgfave.com/image_cache/1266856747976675.jpeg