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Café Terrace at Night
A beautiful night on the town inspires Vincent Van Gogh to paint a picture known as Café Terrace at Night, which later inspires many others. He described his vision as an immense yellow lantern which illuminates the terrace, the façade, the sidewalk and even casts light on the paving stores of the road which take a pinkish violet tone. The tables of the houses, like a fading road below a blue sky studded with stars, are dark blue with violet. Here Van Gogh had a night painting without black, but with nothing other than beautiful blue, violet, and green. Normally painters draw and paint during the day time after a sketch, but Van Gogh likes to paint his work immediately. In the darkness, Van Gogh takes a blue for a green, since it is hard to distinguish that quality of the tone. But if it is the only way to get away from the conventional night with poor, pale, whitish light, while even a simple candle already provides the richest of yellows and oranges. Thee vision Van Gogh espresses through this painting is a vision that shows the peace and tranquility that Van Gogh sought to find.
Modern viewers of today can see this painting in a different way compared to artists like Van Gogh. Compared to today’s enviroment, the town in this painting appears to be old fashioned from a much older era. The buildings, people and enviroment seen to be not very detailed and rather simple. This particular style would either leave a blank or bored expression on their face or allow them to imagine their own emotions and feelings throught the painting. There are no expression, let alone faces, to go along with the people throughout the painting, so it allows the viewers to make up how the characters in the
painting feel. The soft tone of the colors used, emphasized the time of day and set a calm and mellow mood. Through Van Gogh’s perspective, he uses warm complementary colors to draw the viewer into the painting. The warm yellow walls cut...