Starry Night Over the Rhone

Among the most popular Van Gogh paintings, we find The Starry Night. With its dramatic swirling night sky above a quiet village, it is among the most celebrated paintings by Van Gogh. However, it was not Van Gogh’s first full depiction of the night sky. Rather, in 1888 while staying in Arles he painted Starry Night Over the Rhone, a similar yet quite different depiction of the night sky.

The similarities are clear. We are looked at a star filled night sky over a quiet town. Rich dark blue colors are used to depict the night and the special atmosphere it brings. However, the similarities end here. Because, while The Starry Night is dramatic and in constant motion, the night sky in Starry Night Over the Rhone is quiet and peaceful. Indeed, in this painting we see the peaceful town of Arles on the banks of the Rhone. A couple of lovers is walking on the banks Rhone, while the lights of the city are reflected in the river. Above, the sky is illuminated by numerous stars that twinkle. It is an idyllic and peaceful scene, a place for lovers to go, quite unlike The Starry Night

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The differences in the nature of these two night paintings can be traced back to when they were painted and the mental state of Van Gogh at that time. Starry Night Over the Rhone was painted after Van Gogh had arrived in Arles. He was optimistic and content, using his newfound mastery of colors to depict the beauty he saw around him. The Starry Night, on the other hand, was painted in 1889 while Van Gogh was at the hospital at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole. As such, his mental state was much less stable at this time, his mind much more in turmoil. This state of mind is clearly reflected in the sky of The Starry Night.

Van Gogh himself wrote to his brother Theo about his sketch for Starry Night Over the Rhone:

“Included a small sketch of a 30 square canvas - in short the starry sky painted by night, actually under a gas jet. The sky is aquamarine, the water is royal blue, the ground is mauve. The town is blue and purple. The gas is yellow and the reflections are russet gold descending down to green-bronze. On the aquamarine field of the sky the Great Bear is a sparkling green and pink, whose discreet paleness contrasts with the brutal gold of the gas. Two colorful figurines of lovers in the foreground.”

The original Starry Night Over the Rhone can today be found at the Musee D’Orsay in Paris, France.

Coal Barges (1888)

On this website, we have covered many of the most famous and extraordinary paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. However, Van Gogh’s body of work is extensive and contains numerous extraordinary paintings which show off the skills of this master. Among the less known masterworks are paintings like Coal Barges from 1888. Painted while Van Gogh resided in Arles, it depicts the loading of Coal Barges on the bank of the river in the early morning.

The coloring in the painting is amazing. The way the green and yellow colors mixed with red spread across the sky as the sun rises, and how this light is reflected in the water, makes for a breath taking display. It creates a harmonious whole that boils of optimism and hope, as a new day begins with the firework of nature. It may not be among the most famous Van Gogh paintings, but it is definitely among our favorites!

Painter on His Way to Work

When observing the late master works of Van Gogh e.g. The Starry Night and Wheat Field with Crows, they can be dramatic and slightly threatening in their use of colors. His earliest work, on the other hand, is based mainly on earthen hues and dark colors. There is nothing bright or particular expressive in this. As such, when looking at these paintings from his early and very late career, it can sometimes be hard to understand exactly why he was considered just a master of colors.

However, it takes only a short look at some of his mid-career work to see why this is the case. A great example is “Painter on His Way to Work” which was painted by Van Gogh in July 1888. It depicts a painter carrying his gear towards his chosen subject of the day. He is walking on a cobble road and lush green and yellow fields can be seen behind him. The sun is shining from an almost clear sky and reflects off the cobble stones on his path. It is a beautiful day in the countryside outside of Arles.

Van Gogh’s use of bright and happy colors is extremely clear in this painting. The fields are green and yellow, the sky almost green and the sun reflects off the cobbles, making them golden in the process. The colors are applied vividly and without reserve. This is not color realism in the spirit of Vermeer. Rather, we see the colors used to further emphasize the idyllic nature of the situation, which was a feeling deeply felt by Van Gogh as he was setting out to establish his artistic community in the French countryside. Things are good, Van Gogh is happy and so is this painter on his way to work in this idyllic setting.

While he walks and smiles, this “Painter on His Way to Work” could also reflect on the prudent use of colors and how this would inspire artists for generations to come. Indeed the work of a bold master of colors.

The Night Café

The Night Café is among the most celebrated and famous works of Vincent Van Gogh. It was painted in Arles in1888 and depicts the interior of the Café de la Gareon, 30 Place Lamartine, a place Van Gogh himself spend a lot of time. In fact, in one of the more humorous passages of his letters , he wrote his brother Theo that as owner Ginoux had taken so much of his money, he had in turn told Ginoux that it was about time he took his revenge by painting the café.

The depiction of the Café is rendered in red and green colors with yellow light coming from the gas ceiling lamps on the room. A few patrons can be seen at the different tables and the owner, Ginoux, can be seen in white standing to the right. A half curtailed doorway, supposedly leading to more private quarters, can be seen in the back of the room. Unlike the café depicted in The Café Terrace at Night, this is not an entirely welcoming café. Indeed, Van Gogh himself wrote about this painting:

“I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green. The room is blood red and dark yellow with a green billiard table in the middle; there are four lemon-yellow lamps with a glow of orange and green. Everywhere there is a clash and contrast of the most alien reds and greens, in the figures of little sleeping hooligans, in the empty dreary room, in violet and blue. The blood-red and the yellow-green of the billiard table, for instance, contrast with the soft tender Louis XV green of the counter, on which there is a rose nosegay. The white clothes of the landlord, watchful in a corner of that furnace, turn lemon-yellow, or pale luminous green.”

The Night Café is considered among Van Gogh’s most esteemed master pieces, even as the artist himself noted it as among his most ugly works. The use of color in the painting is what Van Gogh himself referred to as suggestive color and with its use, he moved away from the neutral observer stance of the impressionists towards the interpreting observation of impressionism.

The Night Café can today be found on display at the art gallery at Yale University.

The Potato Eaters

Van Gogh painted the work “The Potato Eaters” in 1885 while in Nuenen in Holland, you can find reproduction paintings of The Potato Eaters at Art Reproductions. The painting depicts a number of peasants sitting around in the evening eating potatoes in the light of a small lamp. There has been no work done to beautify the scene or light up the mood. Rather, the depiction is thoroughly realistic and in some cases and people depicted are even ugly. This is completely in line with Van Goghs own thinking about this painting. As he wrote about it:

"You see, I really have wanted to make it so that people get the idea that these folk, who are eating their potatoes by the light of their little lamp, have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish, and so it speaks of manual labour and — that they have thus honestly earned their food. I wanted it to give the idea of a wholly different way of life from ours — civilized people. So I certainly don’t want everyone just to admire it or approve of it without knowing why."
The Potato Eaters divert sharply from later Van Gogh works in its use of colors. The bright and bold use of colors that was to become Van Gogh’s trademark later is thus no apparent in this work.

Today, The Potato Eaters can be found at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.