Café Terrace at Night

A COLOURED NIGHT

Begin with the light

The Kröller-Müller Museum identifies this as Terrace of a Café at Night (Place du Forum), an oil painting held under number KM 108.565. Its account describes Van Gogh working outdoors at night and draws attention to the contrast between the terrace’s warm colours and the deep blue of the starry sky, reinforced by the dark blue of the houses in the background. ^[1]

Look along the awning’s sloping edge. Beneath it, the tables and seated figures cluster against the lit façade. Above and beyond it, the sky occupies a different part of the picture. Compare the areas either side of that edge before looking at an enlarged detail. The whole view keeps the colour contrast connected to the café and the street.

Move down to the pavement. Short painted marks continue across the foreground and lead towards smaller figures in the distance. Follow that route back towards the tables. You can explore the scene through both the large division of light and dark areas and the smaller marks within them.

THE ARTIST’S ACCOUNT

Painting in the dark

In the English translation of letter 678 to his sister Willemien, Van Gogh describes the outdoor café’s yellow lantern, the lit pavement and the blue sky above dark-blue or violet houses. He calls the result a painting of night without black. ^[2]

Read that account alongside the whole picture. Find the lantern and lit façade, then follow the pavement into the street. Compare the different blue-toned areas of sky and buildings instead of treating all the darker space as one colour.

Van Gogh also reports a practical difficulty: in darkness he might mistake one hue for another, giving blue and green as an example. He enjoys painting on the spot at night, preferring to paint immediately rather than make a drawing and paint from it in daylight. ^[2]

The letter describes two different cafés. Its earlier passage concerns an interior with a billiard table; the resumed portion turns to the outdoor terrace, identified in the edition’s artwork note as Café Terrace at Night. ^[2]

AN EARLIER STREET SCENE

Compare the route into the picture

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith read Van Gogh’s terrace as a tribute to Anquetin’s earlier street painting. They point to the oblique view and the awning carrying the perspective into the dark street. ^[3]

For comparison, the Wadsworth Atheneum’s Avenue de Clichy (Street - Five O’clock in the Evening) places a crowd beneath hanging lamps outside a butcher’s shop. In his museum essay, Oliver Tostmann discusses its simplified palette, flattened forms and emphasised contours, and proposes a possible connection with Van Gogh’s later terrace. He also records Van Gogh including Anquetin’s painting in the 1887 exhibition Peintres du Petit Boulevard. ^[4]

Use both complete pictures for the comparison. In Anquetin’s scene, find the projecting structure and hanging lamps above the crowd. Look along the projecting structure above the crowd, then at the dark outlines of the foreground figures. Return to Van Gogh’s picture and trace the awning towards the darker buildings.

How close does each painter place you to the people? In the Anquetin reproduction, a figure occupies the near-right edge and the crowd gathers beside the lit shop. Van Gogh’s foreground includes empty café tables and a larger area of patterned pavement. Follow the space between yourself and the smaller figures further back in each whole picture.

The comparison concerns their arrangements. The catalogue rail gives Van Gogh’s date and medium; the Anquetin caption gives its date and support. Displayed screen widths do not represent equal physical sizes.

RETURN TO THE WHOLE

Follow the pavement

Begin at a foreground table. Move from its circular top to the short marks on the pavement around it, then follow the street towards the smaller figures. Return to the whole painting after looking closely: the table, marks and distant people occupy different amounts of the frame.

Next trace the boundary between the yellow-toned awning and the blue-toned area beside it. Compare that broad division with the smaller colour marks lower down. An enlarged detail can make the marks easier to see; the whole view lets you follow where they lead within the scene.