The Bedroom

This is a painting of a bedroom, made with oil paint on canvas. It is a little under a metre wide and about three-quarters of a metre tall. The room is small and simple, with a bed, chairs, a table with a pitcher and basin, a mirror, a window and doors. The bed fills much of the right side. Nothing here looks muted or shadowy. The colors are bright and flat, and the paint is laid on thickly. It shows the sleeping quarters of the artist, Vincent van Gogh, in his own home.

Van Gogh described his colors in a letter, so you can match them to the room. Start with the bed on the right. Its bedspread is blood-red, and the pillows and sheet are a very pale lemon green. The bed and the chairs are chrome yellow, which is a strong, buttery yellow. Look at the walls, which are pale lilac, and then down at the floor, a faded, broken red. The washbasin is blue and the window is green. Notice the brushwork too, thick and broken into short strokes. Notice how the lines of the floor and furniture slope sharply away from you.

The room is in the Yellow House in Arles, France, which Van Gogh loved. He moved in during September 1888 and first conceived this scene a month later, in October. He described the colors of that first painting in a letter to his brother Theo. This canvas is the second version, made nearly a year afterward, in September 1889, in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. At the same time he produced a third, smaller version. That one was a gift for his mother and sister.

This is perhaps the most famous picture of a bedroom in Western art. With its bold colors, thick and broken brushwork and sharply slanting lines, it can seem full of nervous energy. Yet Van Gogh himself understood it as a calming and restful image. It shows a place made for sleep, in colors he chose with care. Stay with the bed and the floor for a moment. Ask yourself whether the room feels restless to you, or whether the bright, simple shapes begin to settle into quiet.