“Cafe at Night” by Van Gogh-Same Directions
Cafe at Night by Van Gogh is a colorful painting with very bright colors such as yellow, white, and blue. The art seems to have made at night since the blue sky is illuminated with white patches of cloud visible. The painting appears to have formed by an onlooker from the building next to the yellow building since the artist only painted just a small portion of the blue building. The yellow building looks like a cafe that still has customers with some benches empty, meaning it was not peak hour. There are people in the pavements going on with their usual business.
The other buildings opposite the cafe are well-lit, meaning probably it an early evening and people are not asleep yet. The pavements are quite clean, no litter portrayed in the painting, describing that it could be a posh area, densely populated, who respect the cleanliness of the environment. My imagination in the art is that this was a favorite joint to the artist, and that’s why she documented it. Maybe the place reminded him of something or someone, or he was just a fascinated artist who found inspiration from ordinary sites.
The cafe in the painting still exists in Mecca. “According to a letter to his sister, Van Gough said: 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” (“Vincent Van Gogh Artworks & Famous Paintings”). The painting, therefore, was an inspiration from a favorite joint, and the artist used to frequent it during the time.