Artworks

The Bedroom

Artwork · No. 1 in The Bedroom · Vincent van Gogh · October 1888 · oil painting · Van Gogh Museum

The first of the three versions of The Bedroom, painted in Arles in October 1888: Van Gogh’s bedroom in the Yellow House, which he had furnished himself with simple furniture and his own works on the wall. The bright colours were to express “repose” or “sleep”. Research shows that today’s strong contrasts are partly the result of discolouration — the walls and doors, now blue, were originally purple. The skewed rear wall is no mistake: the corner of the room really was at an angle. Van Gogh deliberately “flattened” the interior and left out the shadows so that it would resemble a Japanese print. He thought it among his best: “When I saw my canvases again after my illness, what seemed to me the best was the bedroom.” The canvas was damaged by water while he was in hospital in 1889; before sending it to Theo he made the two repetitions now in Chicago and the Musée d’Orsay.