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Van Gogh In The Yale Art Gallery

Decent Essays
This painting depicts a regular café at night, with the dimensions of 72.4 x 92.1 cm (28 1/2 x 36 1/4 and an accession number of 1961.18.34 this panting stands out amongst other paintings because of how the myriad of colors and hues mix that causes a clash in contrast. In the Yale Art Gallery, this oil painting was in the American room among other American crafts. The thing that quickly caught my eye on this painting was the way Van Gogh applied detail, creativity and the unorthodox use of colors. The painting seemed to be dark and gloomy which was quite a unique quality about the painting. Van Gogh is one of the most famous expressionist artists that people know and love today. This oil painting on a canvas has been called one of Van Gogh's…show more content…
It’s almost as if the waiter is staring directly at the viewer of the painting. Subjectively, this painting stood out to me and even more when I had seen it. This painting had a quite abnormal perspective in a way that the café floor covers a large area of the canvas that Van Gogh painted on. It appeared as if the artist that painted this piece achieved a high vantage point because it looks as if he was suspended in the air while painting. Looking at the Clock in the Café it was almost 1am and this is why the gas lighting was on, and it allowed the cafe to stay opened very late. As the viewer can observe from the painting, the whole environment in the Night Cafe is not so happy and warm. The space itself seemed so isolated and shadowy even the people in the painting had their heads hung almost as if they were sad. Although Van Gogh used red which usually is a quite ecstatic color the addition of red, dark green and dark orange just created an environment that wasn’t so welcoming. Also, the use of Van Gogh's brushstroke had also added another dark feeling to the painting. In this painting, it is very noticeable that Van Gogh used harshly exaggerated brush strokes around the lights of the Cafe and also the use of very bright shades of red and green were purposefully overly planned to portray his view of the night
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