Bedroom in Arles

Bedroom in Arles depicts the simply furnished room Van Gogh occupied at the Yellow House in Arles, a place he hoped would become a colony for like-minded artists. The composition is dominated by a sturdy wooden bed with a red coverlet, flanked by two chairs and a small table bearing a water pitcher and basin. Portraits of friends hang on the pale lilac walls, and the floor tilts sharply toward the viewer, giving the room a slightly vertiginous quality that Van Gogh attributed to the actual shape of the space.

Van Gogh intended the painting to evoke rest and tranquility through its bold, flat areas of complementary color: the blue of the doors and window frame playing against the warm orange of the bed and floor. He described wanting the work to suggest sleep and repose, with color alone carrying the emotional weight. The first version was painted in October 1888; after it was damaged by a flood, Van Gogh created two further versions at the asylum in Saint-Remy in 1889, one at the same scale and a smaller copy intended as a gift for his mother and sister.