Vincent van Gogh painted Café Terrace at Night in 1888 in Arles, France. The oil on canvas measures 80.7 x 65.3 cm and hangs today in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo. The café terrace at night location is the Place du Forum in Arles. He set up his easel on the street and worked after dark, using the gas lamp as his main light source.

What the picture shows

Look first at the left side. A large gas lamp hangs beneath a yellow awning, and the awning and café wall glow bright yellow-orange. The terrace floor is orange. Round tables and chairs fill the space; several people sit at them, and a waiter in a white apron stands among the tables. A cobblestone street runs from the foreground into the distance, painted in short dabs of blue, ochre, and grey. A few figures walk along the street in the background, and a horse and cart appear faintly further up. On the right, dark blue buildings with a few lit windows line the street, and a green tree stands at the right edge. Above, the deep blue night sky holds stars painted as flower-like dots of white and yellow. The picture's strong contrast of yellow-orange and blue and its thick, visible brushwork direct your eye from the terrace to the receding street.

When and why it was painted

Van Gogh moved to Arles in February 1888. By September, he was working outdoors after dark, and Café Terrace at Night was painted on the Place du Forum. He used the gas lamp as his light source and wrote in his letters about painting night scenes on the spot. This picture belongs to Post-Impressionism: the brushwork is thick and visible, and the color is used for expressive contrast rather than naturalistic description. The strong pairing of yellow-orange and deep blue later influenced Expressionist painters, who looked to Van Gogh for ways to charge an ordinary street scene with feeling. The vertical, roughly 4:5 format helps the street recede toward the dark buildings and the starry sky.

Seeing it at home

A hand-painted copy should keep the original's vertical 4:5 proportion, about 80.7 x 65.3 cm. Look for the same thick, visible brushwork, especially in the cobbled street and the star-filled sky. The palette needs the strong yellow-orange of the awning and terrace against the deep blue night sky; copies that flatten this contrast lose the scene's particular glow.