Bedroom in Arles is the title given three similar paintings by Van Gogh of his bedroom. This version of his bedroom in Arles is on show at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The painting depicts Van Gogh's bedroom at 2, Place Lamartine in Arles, better known as the Yellow House. The door to the right was the opening to the upper floor and the staircase, the door to the left served the guest room he held prepared for Gauguin. The window in the front wall was looking to the public gardens.
Vincent describes how he created the painting in a letter to his brother Theo:
"With flat tints, but brushed on roughly, with a thick impasto, the walls pale lilac, the ground a faded broken red, the chairs and the bed chrome yellow, the pillows and the sheet a very pale green-citron, the blanket blood red, the washstand orange, the washbasin blue, the window
green. By means of all these very diverse tones I have wanted to express an absolute restfulness, you see, and there is no white in it at all except a little note produced by the mirror with its black frame (in order to get the fourth pair of complementaries into it)."
He also described his bedroom very detailed in a letter to his brother Theo. In this way he wanted to show Theo that all the money he send to him was for practical use.
Below an example of the way Vincent described his bedroom in a letter to his brother Theo, including a sketch of his bedroom:
"This time it's just simply my bedroom, only here colour is to do everything, and giving by its simplification a grander style to things, is to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In a word, looking at the picture ought to rest the brain, or rather the imagination.
The walls are pale violet. The floor is of red tiles. The wood of the bed and chairs is the yellow of fresh butter, the sheets and pillows very light greenish- citron. The coverlet scarlet. The window green. The toilet table orange, the basin blue. The doors lilac.
And that is all - there is nothing in this room with its closed shutters. The squareness of the furniture again must express inviolable rest. Portraits on the walls, and a mirror and a towel and some clothes. The frame - as there is no white in the picture - will be white. This by way of revenge for the enforced rest I was obliged to take."
Current Location of this version: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
