Vincent: September 10, 1888
“Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night”
Vincent bought a pair of beds and finally moved into the yellow house yesterday. It’s as sunny inside as the exterior walls. He says he likes the atmosphere there and seems to have forgotten the row he had with the Carrel over the rent.
He’s done paintings of two cafés, one over by the Roman forum where he sometimes has a drink and something to eat, the other around the corner from his house that stays open all hours. Both pictures are quite startling. One shows an exterior all ablaze with light, but up in the sky the stars seem to be competing for attention. They’re shimmering crazily. Vincent is quite proud of the fact that he’s rendered the night sky without any black, just blue and green and violet.
He’s done the same thing with the new gas lights in his interior picture. They glow with a fierceness that casts strange shades across the vagabonds and drunks who linger in the place. “Little sleeping hooligans”, Vincent calls them. No wonder he says it’s a place to “go mad or commit crimes”. He seems to have gone mad himself – all the surfaces are askew.
“The Night Café”
Today on the Place du Forum, the Café La Nuit invites tourists to pretend they are Van Gogh and Gauguin by joining the locals for a drink on the terrace outside the brightly painted bar.
“Starry Night over the Rhone”, September 1888
