Terrace of a Café at Night (Place du Forum), 1888

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) was born in the Netherlands and was the son of a minister. He studied painting at the Academy in Brussels, Belgium, and moved to Paris in 1886. There he saw Impressionist art and became friends with other artists. They came to be known as Post-Impressionists. It was a time of increasing experimentation and variety in artistic styles. Van Gogh was working toward a new style, Expressionism, in which artists sought to convey intense feeling in their art.

Van Gogh sketched the scene before completing Terrace of a Café at Night (Place du Forum). Many of the key lines appear in both works. The artist defines the shapes with gently curving arabesque lines and diagonal lines that recede into the background, creating a sense of great depth.

Van Gogh was interested in the way the Impressionists paired complementary colors so that they seemed to vibrate on the canvas. He used vibrant colors and large brushstrokes, enhancing the colors’ differences, rather than letting them visually blend. In Terrace of a Café at Night (Place du Forum), he uses vivid yellowish-orange and rich blues, energizing the scene with the contrasting colors.

The artist saturates the colors in this work more highly than they would appear in reality. Van Gogh once wrote, “I believe that an abundance of gaslight, which, after all, is yellow and orange, intensifies blue.” In this scene, gaslight emanates from inside the café and from the lantern under the awning; it reflects off the paving stones in the street. Van Gogh echoes this light in the stars above and in the windows in the background.

Van Gogh wrote about this painting to his sister: “Here you have a night painting without black . . . It is true that in the darkness I can take a blue for a green, a blue lilac for a pink lilac, since it is hard to distinguish the quality of the tone. But it is the only way to get away from our conventional night with poor pale whitish light.” Van Gogh contrasts the bright, warm light of the café with the cool blue of the night sky and darkened buildings.

• How does Van Gogh use repetition to create texture in this painting?
  (He repeats curved lines depicting the outline, highlights, and shadows of the cobblestones, creating a richly textured effect. Van Gogh’s distinct brushstrokes on the buildings evoke the texture of each surface, and his thick impasto brushstrokes in the tree suggest foliage. His modeled color and thick brushstrokes in the sky render texture in a surprising place.)

• Describe the ways in which Van Gogh uses line in this painting.
  (The artist transfers key structural lines from his sketch into the painting. The lines recede into the background and create the illusion of depth.)

• Discuss the importance of Van Gogh’s brushwork in this painting.
  (The thick paint and visible brushstrokes, called impasto, create a sense of movement and texture in the painting.)

Click here to preview and download a poster-size version of Vincent van Gogh's "Terrace of a Café at Night (Place du Forum)".