Van Gogh’s love for the colour yellow again comes to the fore in this famous and remarkable painting, also known as Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night. Van Gogh believed that yellow represented light and wellbeing; its use in this painting, in both the welcoming warm light of the café as well as the starry night sky, creates an idealistic image of a place where artists of the time could gather in comfort and safety.
Van Gogh often included symbolic elements in his paintings and this is no exception, though much of this symbolism was for his own benefit and not necessarily obvious to the viewer.
In a letter to his sister Wil, Van Gogh wrote enthusiastically, “On the terrace there are tiny figures of people drinking. An enormous yellow lantern sheds its light on the terrace, the house and sidewalk, and even causes a certain brightness on the pavement of the street, which takes a pinkish violet tone. The gable-topped fronts of the houses in a street stretching away under a blue sky spangled with stars are dark blue or violet and there is a green tree. Here you have a night picture without any black in it, done with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green, and in these surroundings the lighted square acquires a pale sulphur and greenish citron colour.”