project-2021

1. CAFÉ TERRACE
AT NIGHT
A painting by Vincent
Van Gogh.

2. Title: Café Terrace at Night
Type of painting: oil on canvas
Height: 80.7cm
Width: 65.3cm
Year it was painting: 1888
Café Terrace at Night is also known as The Café
Terrace on the Place du Forum, and when first
exhibited in 1891, was entitled Coffeehouse, in the
evening (Café, le soir). Van Goh painted Café
Terrace at Night in Arles, France, in mid-September
1888. The painting is not signed, but described and
mentioned by the artist in three letters.

3.  This is a night painting without black, with nothing but beautiful
blue and violet and green and in this surrounding the illuminated
area colors itself sulfur pale yellow and citron green.

4. This painting of a colorful outdoor view is
a picturesque work, the vision of a
relaxed spectator who enjoys the charm
of his surrounding without any moral
concern. It recalls Van Gogh’s mood when
he wrote that
“the night is more alive and more richly
colored than the day.”

5. The most eye-catching aspect of the painting is the sharp contrast between the
warm yellow, green and orange colors under the marquise and the deep blue of the
starry sky, which is reinforced by the dark blue of the houses in the background. Van
Gogh was pleased with the effect: “I believe that an abundance of gaslight, which,
after all, is yellow and orange, intensifies blue.”
This was the very first of series of paintings in which he used starry backgrounds-for
which a night sky is essential. His stargazing was a result of Van Gogh’s newfound
attraction to religion. Religion seemed to fill the vacuum of love.

6. Café Terrace at Night was painted
overlooking the popular Café Terrace at
The Place du Forum, in Arles, a quaint
village in the south of France. Van Gogh
moved to Arles, attracted by its seeming
similarity of light to that found in Japan.
As a matter of fact, many of Van Gogh’s
most famous art were created during his
stay in Arles.

7. A Presentation by Foteini Apostolidou.
The Café Terrace at Night can be found at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo,
Netherlands, home to the second largest collection of Van Gogh paintings. Situated in
the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo, the Kröller-Müller Museum is Netherland’s
national art museum and sculpture garden.
The Supreme Court has ruled that Vincent Van Gogh's Le café de nuit (The Night
Café), worth an estimated $200 million, will remain in the US at Yale University Art
Gallery, reports Agence France-Presse.