Vincent van Gogh
In the Mind of Great Artists
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“One of the ugliest paintings I have ever done.”
Vincent van Gogh
This marvelous painting is Expressionist for its time, and it is far ahead of the Expressionism that would appear with Munch. It was painted five years before The Scream, and the apogee of Expressionism was at the beginning of the 20th century. Even for Van Gogh himself, it was “too much” and looked “terrible.”
Why do we speak of Expressionism? Because of the climate of existential anguish, the nightmarish atmosphere that Vincent achieved with his impasto painting and aggressive brushstrokes, his violent diagonals and contrast of red and green, and the use of deformation as an expressive tool.
In a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent writes: “I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green. The room is blood red and dark yellow, with a green billiard table in the middle; there are four lemon-yellow lamps with a glow of orange and green. Everywhere there is a clash and contrast of the most alien, strangest reds and greens….”
Café de nuit (Night Café) is the name given to the cafés in Arles that are open all night and where “night prowlers can take refuge there when they have no money to pay for lodging, or are too drunk to be taken in,” explained the painter who lived in a rented room right there.
It took Van Gogh three nights to paint the interior of this night cafe. Three nights to paint how it feels. Instead of a café, a refuge for human miseries and insomnia nightmares can be perceived.
Many years later, this work has become “beautiful.”
After the Expressionism of the twentieth century, when the world became used to seeing violent contrasts of color and was fascinated with the gestural, aggressive brushstrokes and considered that deforming reality to express anguish and oppression was brilliant, after the world vindicated and adored this marginal Van Gogh, this painting has become magnificent, of a powerful beauty and enormous expressive force.
The Night Café is one of the artist’s greatest paintings and an obvious explanation of why Van Gogh is too much of an artist for his time. And as we read his sentence, we realize that he himself did not understand the true dimension of what he had achieved.
Image: The Night Café (1888)
Recommended links:
Van Gogh and the Swirling Brushstrokes.
Timeline: Artistic movements from Neoclassicism till the end of the 19th century.
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