The Bedroom at Arles

the bedroom at arles - vincent van gogh

Vincent van Gogh, for whom color was the chief symbol of expression, was born in Holland. The son of a pastor, brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere, Vincent was highly emotional and lacked self-confidence. In Belgium he studied art, determined to give happiness by creating beauty. The works of his early Dutch period are somber-toned, sharply lit, genre paintings. In 1886 he went to Paris to join his brother and began to lighten his very dark palette and to paint in the short brushstrokes of the Impressionists.

Vincent's Bedroom in Arles is one of the artist's best known paintings. The striking colours, unusual perspective and familiar subject matter create a work that is not only among Van Gogh's most popular, but also one that he himself held as one of his own personal favorites.

The painting shown here is actually one five versions: three oil on canvas and two letter sketches. This specific painting, now in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, was the first of the three oils that Van Gogh produced and, some would argue, the best executed. Furthermore, because Van Gogh was so pleased with the painting he described it at great length in letters to his family. In fact, Vincent describes this painting in no less than thirteen letters and, as a result, a great deal is known about the artist's own feelings about the work.

In a letter to his brother, Theo, Vincent wrote:

My eyes are still tired by then I had a new idea in my head and here is the sketch of it. Another size 30 canvas. This time it's just simply my bedroom, only here colour is to do everything, and giving by its simplification a grander style to things, is to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In a word, looking at the picture ought to rest the brain, or rather the imagination.

The walls are pale violet. The floor is of red tiles.

The wood of the bed and chairs is the yellow of fresh butter, the sheets and pillows very light greenish-citron.

The coverlet scarlet. The window green.

The toilet table orange, the basin blue.

The doors lilac.

And that is all--there is nothing in this room with its closed shutters.

The broad lines of the furniture again must express inviolable rest. Portraits on the walls, and a mirror and a towel and some clothes.

The frame--as there is no white in the picture--will be white.

This by way of revenge for the enforced rest I was obliged to take.

I shall work on it again all day, but you see how simple the conception is. The shadows and the cast shadows are suppressed; it is painted in free flat tints like the Japanese prints. It is going to be a contrast to, for instance, the Tarascon diligence and the night café.

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