"The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum" by Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh was a man of many jobs before finding his love as an artisti at age 27.  He held a ten year career as an artist before he death in 1890.  In the short time he lived he was able to produce over a thousand works, nine hundred of them being completed paintings.  Two years before he passed he created The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, one of the first paintings where van Gogh demonstrated a star filled sky.

The Café Terrace was first exhibited in 1892 and was titled Coffeehouse, in the evening (Café, le soir). It was later renamed after letters were found from van Gogh talking about the piece and how he referred to it.

van Gogh wrote to his sister:

"I was only interrupted by my work on a new painting representing the exterior of a night café. On the terrace there are small figures of people drinking. An immense yellow lantern illuminates the terrace, the facade, the side walk and even casts light on the paving stones of the road which take a pinkish violet tone. The gables of the houses, like a fading road below a blue sky studded with stars, are dark blue or violet with a green tree. Here you have a night painting without black, with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green and in this surrounding the illuminated area colours itself sulfur pale yellow and citron green. It amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot. Normally, one draws and paints the painting during the daytime after the sketch. But I like to paint the thing immediately. It is true that in the darkness I can take a blue for a green, a blue lilac for a pink lilac, since it is hard to distinguish the quality of the tone. But it is the only way to get away from our conventional night with poor pale whitish light, while even a simple candle already provides us with the richest of yellows and oranges."

Today people can walk the rue du Palais (Palace Street) in Metz, France and see exactly were van Gogh set his easel.  The Cafe is now known as "Café van Gogh."

Photos and Information gathered fromhttp://cf.juggle-images.com/fit/white/600x600/wg-cafe-terrace-at-night-1.jpg, http://0.tqn.com/d/arthistory/1/7/1/m/vvg_cotn_moma_05.jpg, http://pics.boards.weddingbee.com/3566.van-gogh-vincent-cafe-terrace-at-night.jpg, http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/18/W07-fr.htm, and http://www.juggle.com/cafe-terrace-at-night