Size, Media and Style

The Night Café is a large painting with dimensions of 72 x 92 cm. It was created using oil paint on canvas in the Post-Impressionist style. The artist used bold and contrasting colors to depict the interior of a café, creating an atmosphere that is both vibrant and unsettling.

Date and Location

Vincent Van Gogh painted The Night Café in September 1888 while he was living in Arles, France. The painting depicts the interior of the Café de la Gare, which was located at 30 Place Lamartine and run by Joseph Ginoux.

Description of the Image

The Night Café is a genre painting that shows a scene from everyday life. The interior of the café is depicted in wildly contrasting, vivid colors. The ceiling is green, the upper walls red, and the glowing gas ceiling lamps and floor are largely yellow. The thick texture of the paint adds to the overall ugliness of the picture, as described by Van Gogh himself. The painting features five customers on the left and right, a billiard table in the middle, and the landlord in white clothes. The half-curtained doorway in the center background leads to more private quarters.

Location of the Original Painting

The original painting is owned by Yale University and is currently held at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. John Rewald, Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1982), 209–211, ill; Katherine Neilson and Andrew Carnduff Ritchie, Exploring the Yale University Art Gallery: A Haven for Art Enthusiasts Introduction The Yale University Art Gallery, located in New Haven, Connecticut, is a premier destination for art lovers and scholars alike. Established in 1832, it is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere and houses an impressive collection of over 200,000 https://www.vincentvangogh.org/the-night-cafe.jsp https://arthistory.co/the-night-cafe-vincent-van-gogh-1888/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Caf%C3%A9 https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/12507