Café Terrace at Night

Café Terrace at Night (1888) by Vincent van Gogh. Its palette is led by gold (#85752c, 23%) and dark muted green (#28362f, 22%), with accents of golden olive, muted azure blue and light amber gold. Overall the canvas is mid-toned, moderately saturated and balanced between warm and cool.

Color note

Van Gogh built his color on complementary contrasts, blue against orange and red against green, learned from Delacroix and Japanese prints. Some of his reds were fugitive and have faded, so parts of his paintings are cooler today than he made them.

Palette

#85752c MG 039 gold 22.9% of canvas
#28362f MG 060 dark muted green 22.5% of canvas
#707463 MG 192 golden olive 19.0% of canvas
#0f4b8a MG 106 blue 15.3% of canvas
#1d1e25 MG 222 charcoal 9.9% of canvas
#52748d MG 096 muted azure blue 7.4% of canvas
#b8a84f MG 037 light amber gold 2.9% of canvas

Color families

Brown 32%, Blue 27%, Gray 14%, Yellow 12%, Black 7%

Measurements

Lightness: 0.45
Contrast: 0.37
Vividness: 0.059
Warmth: +0.19
Complexity: 151 cells
Hue range: 0.60
Focus: 0.11

Composition

58% of the visual weight is in the left half, 51% in the upper half. Symmetry 0.49 (how closely its shapes and edges mirror each other). 9% of the canvas is calm space. Half of the detail sits in 37% of the canvas. Measured from the image, not a rule the painter followed.

Details

Date: 1888
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 80.7 × 65.3 cm
Genre: cityscape
Collection: Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo

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