Vincent Van Gogh remains perhaps the most representative, in the public imagination, of the “tortured genius”. Never successful as an artist in his lifetime, he suffered from bouts of psychotic delusions and mental instability, including that notorious episode in which he took a razor to his left ear. Ultimately, he took his own life: in 1890 he shot himself in the chest with a revolver and died from his injuries two days later. He was 37. But my, what an artistic legacy he left, and what tremendous global fame he would achieve, posthumously…if he had only had an inkling!
Today, when we think of Van Gogh, a number of his paintings spring to mind. There is his Sunflower series (take your pick, there are many different versions), painted in 1888 and 1889 with the gusto, in Vincent’s own words, of a “Marseillais eating bouillabaisse”. There is The Starry Night (famously name-checked in the opening line of Don McLean’s song, Vincent), painted in 1889 and depicting the view from Vincent’s room in the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. There are his many self-portraits (over 30, with and without bandaged left ear). Or perhaps his wonderfully (and deceptively) child-like Bedroom at Arles.
There is one of Van Gogh’s paintings in particular, however, that appeals to my imagination the most, and that is his Café Terrace at Night. Depicting a late-night coffee house in the Place du Forum in Arles, it brings together all the elements of Van Gogh’s talents in one wonderfully evocative scene. Bathed in the light of a huge yellow lantern, the café looks like the perfect place to spend a warm summer’s eve, doesn’t it? I could wile away an hour or two there, watching the world go by, no problem!
An intense yellow saturates the cafe and its awning, and projects beyond the café onto the cobblestones of the street, which takes on a violet-pink tinge. The street leads away into the darkness under a blue sky studded with larger-than-life stars. Dashes of green from the tree in the top-right and the lower wall of the café, along with the orange terracotta of the café floor, add to the satisfying palette of this painting. Van Gogh wrote that “the night is more alive and more richly coloured than the day”, and on the strength of this piece I can see what he means.
