Night Drama

Here, Van Gogh describes the theatrical qualities of the cafe.  Van Gogh's Night Cafe is seductive, eerie, irresistible:

"In my picture of Night Cafe I have tried to express the idea that the cafe is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime."



"Pale sulfur and greenish citron-yellow color"....a "night picture without any black in it"..."beautiful blue and violet and green"..."it amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot"..."A cafe, with the terrace lit up by a big gas lamp in the blue night, and a corner of a starry blue sky."

---Vincent Van Gogh, Letters to Theo, September 1888