The Bedroom at Arles

Van Gogh painted this version of his bedroom in Arles in September 1889, while he was at the asylum in Saint-Remy. It is the third of three versions he painted of the same subject. The first version, painted in October 1888, is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The second, painted in September 1889, is in the Art Institute of Chicago. This third version, also from September 1889, was painted for his mother and sister and is now in the Musee d'Orsay. The room is Van Gogh's bedroom in the Yellow House in Arles, where he lived from May 1888 until his hospitalization in December. A wooden bed fills the right wall, its red coverlet bright against the green walls. Two chairs sit on either side of the room, one by the bed, one by the window. A small table holds a washbasin and a mirror. The floor is red tiles. Three paintings hang on the walls. The room is empty of people, but every object is painted with the intensity of a portrait. Van Gogh wrote to Theo about the first version: "This time it's just simply my bedroom, only here colour is to do everything, and, giving by its simplification a grander style to things, to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In a word, looking at the picture ought to rest the mind, or rather the imagination." He used complementary colors: red against green, blue against orange, yellow against purple. The walls are a particular shade of violet that he mixed himself. The three versions differ in small details. The Musée d'Orsay version has slightly different proportions and some changes to the objects on the walls. Van Gogh painted it from memory at the asylum, sending it to his family as a gift. The painting is a statement about home, about the simple room that represented his attempt to build a life in Arles. Oil on canvas, 73.5 by 92 centimeters. Van Gogh used flat, unmodulated areas of color, with thick outlines around each object. The perspective is distorted, the back wall leaning forward, a deliberate effect that Van Gogh described in his letters. This painting works well in a bedroom, living room, or hallway. The 16x20 framed version in a white frame suits the bright, domestic subject. The 12x16 canvas version is also a good choice for a bedroom. The painting is in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. This is a public domain artwork, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 24x36 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.