How to Read Paintings: Night Café by Vincent van Gogh
A compelling depiction of the night prowlers of Arles
This article features in the book Great Paintings Explained, an examination of art’s most enthralling images, by Christopher P Jones.
Vincent van Gogh made this painting in early September 1888. It shows the interior of a tavern, a local bar populated by “night prowlers” as Van Gogh called them — people who “have no money to pay for a lodging, or are too drunk to be taken in.”
Look at the picture closely. The clock on the far wall tells us that it is a quarter past midnight. The bar is mostly empty. The billiard table has fallen quiet and the few revellers that remain are half-slumped over empty glasses of beer.
Look at the painting again. Look at how the billiard table dominates the centre of the image and how the space around the table is given so much room to breathe. This, I think, is where the success of the painting truly lies. The shadow of the table spreads out across the floor without interruption. This shadow is so large that it becomes one of the main events on the canvas.
And then there is the broad avenue-like margin along the left side of the billiard table. See how much room Van Gogh has given this area, whilst the human details are pushed to the outer edges of the scene. The shadow of the billiard table, along with the space around it, take on a subtly symbolic meaning, inviting a sense of alienation and doubt, and maybe a touch of mystery too. The space also permits us to enter the scene. It is a breach, an opening into an otherwise remote world.
Now see how the perspective is slightly tilted towards the viewer like the sloping deck of a ship. We see the billiard table as if we are elevated several feet above the floor. The lines of the floorboards, painted in Van Gogh’s characteristic clotted brushstrokes, sweep upwards and inwards with precipitous energy. Everything in this painting is moderately off-kilter — from the clock on the wall to the chairs and tables around the outside — engaging our senses in a jarring way.
The effect of the altered perspective is also to draw us into the painting. The lines of the room slope and converge upon the curtained doorway at the back. This doorway becomes a focal point, a mysterious promise of an inner sanctum. And when viewed using the rule of thirds — the idea that points of interest within a composition ought to sit on the intersections between even divisions into three parts — then the doorway at the back clearly lies at one of these ideal crosshairs.
When all these things are taken together, the painting becomes as much an invitation into the world of the tavern as it is a warning against its dangers. It is this ambivalence that makes the image so compelling.
There can be little doubt that Van Gogh considered this work a deliberate attempt to explore the more sinister aspects of tavern life. He wrote of it in a letter:
“In my picture of the Night café, I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can destroy oneself, go mad or commit a crime. In short, I have tried … to express the powers of darkness in a common tavern.”
Despite describing the painting as “…one of the ugliest I have done,” Van Gogh was obviously excited by the work. In letters to his brother, Theo, he mentioned it numerous times and spoke of his intentions for the image in keen detail:
“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 reds and greens, in the figures of little sleeping hooligans, in the empty dreary room, in violet and blue.”
The four gas lamps that Van Gogh mentions hang from the ceiling as tangible orbs of light. They have the curious look of great eyeballs floating in the air — perhaps examining us as we enter the bar — and the light that emanates from them are like ripples on a lake.
The colour of these light sources appears at first glance to be a sort of musty yellow, whereas in fact much of the tonal glare is made up from interspersed dashes of bright green. The effect creates a trembling contrast with the solid terracotta red of the background walls. These colours were important to Van Gogh, as he wrote, “I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green.”
The tavern depicted was in the town of Arles in the south of France, where Van Gogh had settled in the hope of establishing an artistic commune there. One of his more personal priorities after leaving Paris was to attend to his ailing health, which often suffered from heavy drinking and what he described as his “rather too artistic way of life.” Indeed, he considered his whole family to be subject to some sort of hereditary neurosis, expressing to Theo at one point, “… if we face up to our true state of mind, we have to acknowledge that we are among those who suffer from a mental illness rooted quite a long way back in the past.”
It was February of 1888 that Van Gogh arrived in Arles, where he would spend the next fourteen months and where some of his most well-known paintings and drawings were made. His early impressions of the town seem to be one of delight mixed with curiosity:
“In all honesty, I have to add that the Zouaves [the title given to certain light infantry regiments in the French Army, normally serving in French North Africa], the brothels, the charming little Arlésiennes on their way to their first Communion, the priest in his surplice, who resembles a dangerous rhinoceros, and the absinthe drinkers, also strike me as beings from another world.”
Van Gogh had been in Arles for around six months when he painted The Night Café. As he became accustomed to life in the town, occasionally visited by other artists travelling down from the north of France, he began to take to the bars and brothels of Arles himself.
It is interesting to wonder whether, by this time, the prostitutes and the absinthe drinkers still struck Van Gogh as beings from another world or if he had taken his place among them. My own feeling is that the painting somewhat answers the question. In the work, he attempts a dispassionate observation of the tavern but cannot help implicating himself in the desolate, dangerous setting.
If you liked this, you may also be interested in my book How to Read Paintings, an examination of some of art’s most enthralling images.
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