The Night Café by Vincent Van Gogh

Print on Cotton Canvas

The painting, Le café de nuit (The Night Café) , created in September 1888, is instantly recognizable as a masterwork by Vincent van Gogh. Who else would use a palette of yellows, reds, and browns and paint lemon-colored lamps seeming to glow and emit concentric green and golden halos of light? Such halos surrounding celestial bodies at night are prominent in Starry Night over the Rhone (September 1888), Café Terrace at Night (September 1888) and his most famous work, Starry Night (June 1889). Le café de nuit was painted during a period of prodigious productivity; in September 1888 alone, van Gogh produced 7 oil paintings – at least 3 were painted at night. This was also a period when his life was starting to fall apart: he died of a gunshot wound (most likely suicide) in July 1890, only 13 months after painting Starry Night. (c)