The Night Café by Vincent van Gogh is a painting that shows
van Gogh deepest fears. Van Gogh painted in September 1888 while he was living
in Arles. Earlier in the year he had moved to a room at the Café de la Gare,
where the room depicted in this painting was. The Night Café is a nightmare of
deep-green ceiling, blood-red walls, and discordant greens in the furniture. The
bright yellow floor is tilted so that the contents of the room threaten to
slide toward the viewer. The result is a terrifying experience of
claustrophobic. I think that was very unique way to convey his feeling towards
the café. For Van Gogh the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad
or commit a crime. The reasons why we know the meanings behind Van Gogh’s work
are because of the hundreds of letters that he wrote.
Here are some texts from a letter describing the painting
I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by
means of red and green. The room is blood red and dark yellow with a green
billiard table in the middle; there are four lemon-yellow lamps with a glow of
orange and green. Everywhere there is a clash and contrast of the most alien
reds and greens, in the figures of little sleeping hooligans, in the empty
dreary room, in violet and blue. The blood-red and the yellow-green of the
billiard table, for instance, contrast with the soft tender Louis XV green of
the counter, on which there is a rose nosegay. The white clothes of the
landlord, watchful in a corner of that furnace, turn lemon-yellow, or pale
luminous green.
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment