a Closer Look at

INTERIOR OF A RESTAURANT
by Vincent van Gogh

DAN SCOTT
 Interior of a Restaurant
I was introduced to a new painting by Vincent van Gogh the other day, Interior of a
Restaurant. I’m surprised that I’m still seeing van Gogh paintings for the first time,
especially considering I’ve been writing about art for over seven years now. He may
have lived a relatively short and turbulent life, but it sure was a prolific one. Let’s take
a closer look at the painting.

I’ll cover:

• Key Details

• Intimate Composition

• Pointillism

• Compressed Values and Dark Accents

Vincent van Gogh, Interior of a Restaurant, 1887

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 Key Details
• Medium: Oil on Canvas

• Size: 18 x 22 in (45.5 x 56 cm)

• Completed: 1887

• Current Location: Kröller-Müller Museum, Netherlands

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 Intimate
Composition

It’s an intimate and tight composition, with no windows or open doors. It feels like we
are right there in the restaurant. This was one of van Gogh’s greatest strengths—being
able to capture and convey the subject’s true essence. The only break we get from the
confines of the room is through a painting on the wall depicting open sky and land.

The rigid settings push a sense

of linear perspective. As the
viewer, we stand at an angle to
the walls and the corner of the
room is off-center in our line of
vision. This results in all these
diagonal lines that gently con-
verge toward each other as they
get further away. The tables also
appear to flatten out as you go
from right to left. Consider what
the painting would look like
had van Gogh painted directly
in front of one of the walls. Flat
and static I imagine.

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 Tip:
The perspective and vantage point from which you convey
the subject can greatly influence the overall composition.

As I was doing the above draw-over, I noticed several oddities in terms of perspective.
For example, the painting appears slightly too flat in perspective compared to the rest
of the wall. These slight oddities also play into the nature and charm of van Gogh’s
work. It’s imperfect by design, as is life. And whilst van Gogh was not a stickler for
precision, he did do enough to make it believable.

Below is the painting with a three-by-three grid over the top. This shows us how the
painting is arranged in terms of the rule of thirds. The idea is that the gridlines and
intersections are naturally aesthetic positions in a painting with mathematical foun-
dations. See how the dimensions of the room roughly align with the left vertical and
bottom horizontal grid lines and how each segment is unique.

There’s an interesting sense of diagonal balance between the top left and bottom right
corners. The top left is further and quieter.

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 Pointillism
Van Gogh made good use of pointillism for the walls, floor, and flowers. Instead of
blending the colors together, he painted distinct dabs of color in varying combina-
tions. The result is a vibration of color that optically blends together.

It’s a particularly effective technique for injecting life and activity into otherwise bland
areas. The downside is it comes at the expense of intricate drawing and rendering (you
cannot hope to paint with the fine rendering of John Singer Sargent whilst painting
with small dabs of color).

In the close-up below,

notice how van Gogh
suggests changes in the
wall through changes in
color. The more dramat-
ic the change in color,
the more dramatic the
change in subject or en-
vironment.

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The effect is more subtle with low-contrast colors. See parts of the tablecloths and
how it’s hard to distinguish between the dabs of light green, yellow, and white. It also
seems like van Gogh uses a different technique here. Instead of building up layers of
distinct dabs, it looks like he painted a layer of white and then painted dabs of color
over the top in the wet paint.

Van Gogh also used more solid

brushwork for certain areas, such
as the chairs, the painting on the
wall, and the light fixture. This
adds contrast and gives our eyes a
break from all the dancing colors.
Also, on a separate point, look at
how van Gogh scratched details in
the wet paint (refer to the close-up
below). This is why it pays to look
at paintings up close. You get to
see all these tiny details that might
otherwise elude you. Van Gogh was
certainly not limited by technique;
he did anything necessary to convey
his ideas, whether that be scratch-
ing, dabbing, swirling, flat strokes,
scumbling, and so on.

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 Compressed Values and
Dark Accents

Below is the painting in grayscale:

Most of the colors are compressed around the middle to light gray value range. This
makes the painting appear flat without color. It’s different to say, a painting by Rem-
brandt that utilizes a full value range from stygian blacks all the way up to brilliant
highlights.
Rembrandt, Self-Portrait at the Age of 63,
1669 (Grayscale)

That’s the downside of using more color in a

painting—it comes at the expense of the full val-
ue range. Unfortunately, you cannot paint with
both the color of van Gogh and the drama, light,
and shadow of Rembrandt. There’s always a
trade-off.

There are two dark accents outside of the com-

pressed value range. These act as small exclama-
tion points that draw our attention and provide
contrast for the lighter colors. This pairing of
compressed values plus dark accents is one of
my go-to strategies.