Good afternoon,

Today I will be looking into paintings of night scenes by Van Gogh, and my thesis is:
Analysing the themes and technical aspects of Van Gogh’s paintings of the night scene.

Van Gogh was always deeply fascinated with the night scene. He viewed the dark hours as a period of
contemplation and creativity, a moment where he could reflect on the happenings of the day and express
his inner thoughts on the beauty of the night scenes in letters to his close friends and family. His
sentiments about the night informed his visual representations of it. Hence, he infused his depictions of the
night time environment with his ideas about the symbolic properties of these hours, such as the cycles of
life, the effects of modernity and the magnificence of nature.
Unlike other artists (such as Millet), Van Gogh grappled with the nocturnal world as a totality, weaving all
of its multifaceted aspects into a cohesive whole, articulating well all the diverse experiences stimulated by
the night, from spiritual contemplation to modern nightlife.
Scenes set at night form a recurring motif in his work. In my presentation, I will be looking into 3 of Van
Gogh's paintings, exploring the different themes and settings of the night scenes Van Gogh has painted,
and analysing the some of their technical, stylistic and symbolic aspects.
1.

Van Gogh perceived the night as a time of release, of well-earned rest from labour and celebrating
peasants' simple dignities. A massive contrast with those avant-garde artists who revelled in the glitter and
bustle of the after-hours city.
Van Gogh sought to connect with a tradition of sombre scenes of the landscape in the evening and at night,
preferring to depict the harsh reality of rural life by portraying peasants at work or resting with the
confines of the family in the evening, he wanted to paint peasants "in their setting".

In April 1885, Van Gogh wrote that his Potato Eaters, could not be conceived of as a traditional
"lamplight" work like those of his predecessors. He wanted to paint "darkness that is still colour" and
hence, turned to Delacroix's colour theories and chiaroscuro which he studied in books. He was impressed
by the way the artist used bright colours and colour contrasts that may not have accorded with reality to
make a convincing painting, but aims to portray expressive power, attributed to the lighting of the faces
from above.

ELEMENTS: STEAM
The steam depicted were also thoughtfully placed, (manipulating reality to a certain extent), at only places
where it suited his purposes. .....
He made use of the steam rising from the dish of potatoes, which catches the lamplight to give contrast to
the figure of the little girl in the foreground, along the outlines of her head and shoulders.
On the other hand, the potatoes near the hands of the man and woman stabbing them with forks, cups of
coffee that the old woman is pouring are not steaming , as the visual effect of steam was of no use to him
in that spot, and hence was left out so as to not disrupt the clarity of the image.

COLOURS
This act had probably stemmed from Van Gogh's study of Delacroix's colour theories, using a "Broken
tone" made by mixing complementary colours, (e.g. red and green). The shades extinguish each other,
creating a sort of dirty grey that still manages to retain something of a shade depending on the proportion
of the colours in the blend. Hence, helping to achieve the effect of "darkness but still colour".
2.
Van Gogh was given a series of drawings of brothel scenes, which gave Van Gogh the idea for a
contemporary design in a modern artistic idiom.

Similar to The Potato Eaters, The Night Cafe was a picture of people seeking solace at night, but in this
case, it was not a warm and comforting refuge. Van Gogh believed that the modern age jeopardized
people’s peace of mind, with the bright city’s dehumanising effect on the people.
Contrasted to The Potato eaters, the billiard table is in place of the dining table, and rather than the people
engaging in a meal and conversations together, the effects of modernity has sapped these people's strength
and also their ability to connect with one another.

ELEMENTS: LIGHTING

In this painting, it is the glaring artificial light that Van Gogh tries to portray.
In the painting, there are 4 visible laps. The lamp in the centre that illuminates the table is a gas lamp while
the other 3 looks like old-fashioned oil lamps.
He used various means to indicate the brightness of the lemon-yellow gaslight, beginning with a very thick
splotch of lemon, and then surrounding it with bright yellow rays that beams straight/ perpendicularly out
of the lamp. The strength of the light is further cleverly emphasised by the dark shadow cast by the billiard
table, resulting in added prominence as Van Gogh left out all the other shadows, which probably have been
many of them.
On the other hand, Van Gogh rendered the softer light of the oil lamps, also using lemon yellow, but
surrounding them with an orange and green glow. (contrast centre 2?)

COLOURS:
The Night Cafe uses a clever interplay of colours. Van Gogh uses the harsh, saturated red colour of the
walls in contrast with its complementary colour, green, above on the ceilings, a paler shade of green for the
counter below, Other objects painted in the picture is painted in red and green as well such as the green
billiard cloth, with a single red ball, a red tabletop in the background, green hair of the landlord etc.
Amongst all these bold colours, the white jacket and trousers of the landlord is designed to be a resting
point for the eye, an idea borrowed from Blanc.

The style in which The Night Cafe was painted is spontaneous and robust, keeping in character of this
realistic and contemporary scene. Van Gogh consciously sought stylistic means of expression that were in
line with his subjects.
3.
Comparing this painting with my next, The Starry Night, it is evident that the reality of modern life
dominates the scene in the cafe, but the grandeur of nature dominates that in The Starry Night.

STRUCTURE AND SYMBOLISM

The Starry night is an invented landscape, where Van Gogh painted an imaginary village inspired by the
town of Saint-Remy. The cypress tree and village church, gives the painting depth and structure to the
painting. At the bottom the houses are outlined in black, similar to the figures in a stained glass window,
making the painting more structured, the trees resembles dense skins of wool, and hence giving the earth,
the lower half of the painting a sense of solidity, in contrast to the starlight spreading outwards in
concentric waves and the swirling sky which seems more dynamic, as if in motion. (The huge expanse of
the sky besides that of the relatively small scale of human settlement, as well as the dominant source of
light being that from the moon and the stars, contrasted with the small lighted windows of the buildings, it
seem as a reminder of the greatness of nature in contrast to our humble lives.)
The dark cypress trees, a traditional cemetery tree, which evokes death is painted in the foreground, it
snakes up vibrantly like a flame, bridging the bottom and upper half of the painting / land and sky / heaven
and earth, as if signifying Van Gogh's wonderment of the heavens, the inevitability of death unavoidable,
and perhaps from the thinning of the cypress trees as it goes upwards, how only few are able to transcend
to heaven.

COLOUR
Creating the effect of colour in a dark scene imposes constraints on an artist, and finding the right colours
to evoke the feeling of the night is difficult. In reality, the night is not as blue as he made it to be in his
Starry Night, but he nevertheless achieved the effect he wanted by using that palette. This is due to blue,
which is a colour can be used both light and dark without losing its intensity when a pigment with
sufficient opacity is used. This allowed Van Gogh to paint primarily in blue in a range of harmonizing
tones, not having to maintain a balance in a much more complicated composition using a large number of
dark shades and colours, hence breaking through the problem that he faced when painting The Potato
Eaters.

All in all, Van Gogh had painted many painting of the scenes at night, exploring vastly different themes,
settings, techniques, etc. as summarised here.

Painting Theme Setting Areas explored

The Potato Eaters, Peasant life The simple dignities of Indoors Elements & Colours
1885 life

The Night Cafe, 1888 Modern / nightlife The effects of modernity Indoors

The Starry Night, Landscape (emphasis on the The magnificence of Outdoors Colour, structure and
1889 natural sky / stars) nature Symbolism

Thank you.