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Vincent van Gogh Cafe Terrace at Night Painting |
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Painting
Title: Cafe Terrace at Night 1888
Oil on Canvas, 81 x 65.5cm - 31 x 26 Inches
(approx)
Vincent van Gogh
Famous Dutch artist - Post Impressionist painter
About the Cafe Terrace at Night Painting
Vincent van Gogh painted several night scenes
and became fascinated with depicting the stars
(most famously with his Starry Night paintings)
and the light effects of the night. Van Gogh
has achieved an effect of luminosity with
the use of contrasting colors and tones. The
darks compliment the lights, the blues intensify
the oranges, and the purples bring out the
yellows.
Van Gogh wrote about the Cafe Terrace at Night
painting in a letter to his sister, saying
"Here you have 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. It amuses me enormously
to paint the night right on the spot. Normally,
one draws and paints the painting during the
daytime after the sketch. But I like to paint
the thing immediately.
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, while even a simple
candle already provides us with the richest
of yellows and oranges."
The cafe still exists today and is a popular
destination for those following the footsteps
of Vincent van Gogh. |
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