Cafe Terrace at Night

Cafe Terrace at Night, also known as The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, is a painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh which he rendered in Arles, France in September 1888. Van Gogh used oil paint on canvas and the painting is 81 × 65.5 cm (32" × 26"). The painting is currently at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands.

In the painting van Gogh expressed his new impressions from southern France and the painting depicts a café in Arles, then Café Terrace and is now renamed to Café Van Gogh. The style of the painting is unique for van Gogh with the warmth of colours and the depth of the perspective.

Van Gogh wrote in a letter to his sister after finishing the picture expressing his enthusiasm for it,

Here you have a night picture without any black in it, done with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green. … It amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot.

This is the first painting in which he used starry backgrounds. He went on to paint star filled skies in Starry Night Over the Rhone, painted the same month, and the better known Starry Night a year later. Also, in Portrait of Eugene Boch van Gogh painted a starlight background.

External links

• The Vincent van Gogh Gallery, Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, 2004