Interpretation of Van Gogh's 'Cafe De Nuit'

This article provides an analysis of Vincent van Gogh's painting 'Cafe De Nuit', depicting the inner and outer dilemmas of human beings. The painting shows the passion of human beings through use of vibrant yellow strokes and on other hand, mundane reality of the contemporary time has also been illuminated here. The figures of this painting focuses on the unemployment issue of that time when people used to spend their nights at cafe because they had no secure homes. The color red has been described by the painter as blood red that illuminates the bitterness in the perspective of the painting itself. Thus it can be said that the painting shows humanity’s lowest edge mixed with hopelessness.

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INTERPRETATION OF VAN GOGH’S ‘CAFE DE NUIT’

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Le Café De nuit or The Night Café is a well known painting painted by the famous
painter Vincent van Gogh in 1888. The Painting shows the interior of a café. In order to be more
specific, this can be said that the café has been depicted with a doorway that is half-curtained and
that is leading towards some private quarters. It has been noticed that there are five customers
and a waiter at that café along with a billiard table, facing towards the viewers. This painting has
been executed on (30 size) prime canvas1. The medium of this painting is oil paint and the
signature of the painter has been inscribed with the title of the picture beneath the painting. It has
been said that the painting has been based on a real café that used to be situated at Lamartine and
used to be run by Joseph Ginoux and Marie.
The five customers that have been depicted in this painting have been shown as being
drunk on the verge of sleep2. It can be assumed that the cafe is crowded with local prostitutes that
have been seen as being slouched at tables. On the other hand, the perspective of the painting is
downwards the floor of the café as if someone is looking from the ceiling downwards the floor.
The painter used vibrant colors that contrast each other. For example, the upper walls of the café
are painted with red while the ceiling is painted with green. Yellow is the most prominent color
that can be seen vividly in this painting. One of the most important facts lies in the fact that there
are six men and only one woman in this painting3. This feature foregrounds the society of that
time when women were scarcely seen in cafes at night. Other than the customers and the centre
billiard table, there are few other things such as a depiction of a bar, a flower vase and some
1 Bellone, Francesco and Luigi. "THE COMMON EVOLUTION OF GEOMETRY,” 122.
2 Gerson,. "The Night Café,” 197.
3 Monico et al., "Degradation process,” 10804-10811.

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yellow lamps over the ceiling. These little details make this painting more realistic. For example,
the clock has been painted so that the viewers can predict the timeframe of this painting.
Apart from the general interpretation of the visuals, perspective plays an important role
here. It can be said that this painting is a less viewer oriented painting and more painter centered
painting. In other words, this can be stated that the painter has shown an exaggerated perspective
through this painting where there are instances of disoriented angles. Night has always been a
common theme in Van Gogh’s paintings. According to Van Gogh, night is a time of the day that
can be painted more vibrantly than daytime4. As per the condition of the drunk and half-asleep
customers, it can be said that they are planning to stay at the café for the whole night as they
have nowhere to go. It can also be mentioned that those customers have been seen as travelers
with no native land by the painter5. From the above mentioned interpretation, it can be said that
the figures of this painting focuses on the unemployment issue of that time when people used to
spend their nights at café because they had no secure homes.
In this context, it can be added that depiction of the drunken travelers, contrasting colors
and disoriented strokes of oil paint imply the inner sadness of this painting. In other words, this
can be stated that there is a battle going on among the colors and also inside the minds of the
figures that are in that café because they are not happy with their lives. Though there is more
than one person in this painting but still loneliness has been shrieking through the painting6.
4 Liu, Raymond and Yuan. "Geometric tight frame,” 590-602
5 Monico et al., "Full spectral XANES,” 613-626.
6 Putri, , Ramakrishnan and Kourosh, "Artistic Style,” 378-385.

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Additionally, the color red has been described by the painter as blood red that illuminates the
bitterness in the perspective of the painting itself. Thus it can be said that the painting shows
humanity’s lowest edge mixed with hopelessness.
I have chosen this painting for interpretation because this painting involves both inner
and outer dilemmas of a human being. On one hand, the painting shows the passion of human
beings through use of vibrant yellow strokes and on other hand, mundane reality of the
contemporary time has also been illuminated here. As this study interprets a reproduction of the
original painting, thus the connection between the painting and the viewer is somehow lost. It
can be assumed that the original painting, with original oil paint on the canvas, may generate
new meanings of this painting in the mind of the viewer.

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Bibliography
Bellone, Tamara, Francesco Fiermonte, and Luigi Mussio. "THE COMMON EVOLUTION OF
GEOMETRY AND ARCHITECTURE FROM A GEODETIC POINT OF
VIEW." International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing & Spatial
Information Sciences 42 (2017): 122.
Gerson, Alan. "The Night Café Redux: A Study of Sordidness, From Arles to the US
Courts." Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 49 (2017): 197.
Liu, Haixia, Raymond H. Chan, and Yuan Yao. "Geometric tight frame based stylometry for art
authentication of van Gogh paintings." Applied And Computational Harmonic
Analysis 41, no. 2 (2016): 590-602.
Monico, Letizia, Koen Janssens, Frederik Vanmeert, Marine Cotte, Brunetto Giovanni Brunetti,
Geert Van der Snickt, Margje Leeuwestein, Johanna Salvant Plisson, Michel Menu, and
Costanza Miliani. "Degradation process of lead chromate in paintings by Vincent van
Gogh studied by means of spectromicroscopic methods. Part 5. Effects of nonoriginal
surface coatings into the nature and distribution of chromium and sulfur species in
chrome yellow paints." Analytical chemistry 86, no. 21 (2014): 10804-10811.
Monico, Letizia, Koen Janssens, Matthias Alfeld, Marine Cotte, Frederik Vanmeert, Chris G.
Ryan, Gerald Falkenberg, Daryl L. Howard, Brunetto Giovanni Brunetti, and Costanza
Miliani. "Full spectral XANES imaging using the Maia detector array as a new tool for
the study of the alteration process of chrome yellow pigments in paintings by Vincent van
Gogh." Journal of analytical atomic spectrometry 30, no. 3 (2015): 613-626.
Putri, Tieta, Ramakrishnan Mukundan, and Kourosh Neshatian. "Artistic Style Characterization
of Vincent Van Gogh s Paintings using Extracted Features from Visible Brush Strokes."
In ICPRAM, 20, no. 2 (2017): 378-385.