"Vincent's Bedroom in Arles (First version)"
Vincent Van Gogh - Oil On Canvas - 72 x 90 cm
Bedroom in Arles (French: La Chambre à Arles Dutch: Slaapkamer te Arles) is the title given to each of three similar paintings by 19th-century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.
Van Gogh's own title for this composition was simply The Bedroom (French: La Chambre à coucher). There are three authentic versions described in his letters, easily discernible from one another by the pictures on the wall to the right.
The painting depicts Van Gogh's bedroom at 2, Place Lamartine in Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, France, known as his Yellow House. The door to the right was 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 Place Lamartine and its public gardens. This room was not rectangular, but trapezoid, with an obtuse angle in the left hand corner of the front wall and an acute angle at the right. Van Gogh evidently did not spend much time on this problem, he simply indicated that there was a corner, somehow.
Van Gogh started the first version during mid October 1888 while staying in Arles, and explained his aims and means to his brother Theo:
This time it simply reproduces my bedroom
but colour must be abundant in this part, its simplification adding a rank of grandee to the style applied to the objects, getting to suggest a certain rest or dream. Well, I have thought that on watching the composition we stop thinking and imagining. I have painted the walls pale violet. The ground with checked material. The wooden bed and the chairs, yellow like fresh butter
the sheet and the pillows, lemon light green. The bedspread, scarlet coloured. The window, green. The washbasin, orangey
the tank, blue. The doors, lilac. And, that is all. There is not anything else in this room with closed shutters. The square pieces of furniture must express unswerving rest
also the portraits on the wall, the mirror, the bottle, and some costumes. The white colour has not been applied to the picture, so its frame will be white, aimed to get me even with the compulsory rest recommended for me. I have depicted no type of shade or shadow
I have only applied simple plain colours, like those in crêpes.
Van Gogh included sketches of the composition in this letter as well as in a letter to Gauguin, written slightly later. This version has on the wall to the right miniatures of Van Gogh's portraits of his friends Eugène Boch and Paul-Eugène Milliet. The portrait of Eugène Boch is called The Poet and the portrait of Paul Eugène Milliet is called The Lover.