Talk:Cafe Terrace at Night

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[edit] Lyrics, removed

• In the painting Van Gogh expressed his new impressions from southern France and the painting depicts a sidewalk cafe in Arles, then Café Terrace[citation needed] (now renamed to Café van Gogh.) In French, the "terrace" (terrasse) of a café simply denotes the outside area where patrons can sit. The style of the painting is unique for Van Gogh with the warmth of colours and the depth of the perspective.

• The façade of the café has recently been repainted in the exact same tones as it appears on the painting - that is, in a mixture of yellow and green hues (see picture.)

Unsourced statements, difficult to substantiate. And at all misguiding: Van Gogh used colours he intended (!), he was forced to use by colour theory, not necessarily colours he saw. He knew (!) that complementaries would work. It's nonsense to paint a house in yellow, referring to a painting by Van Gogh - most probably it had a faded white, grey or whatever one can see passing the villages of Provence. --rpd (talk) 01:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Site

User 80.144.156.234 is absolutely right, as most of the "Van Gogh sites" in Arles (as well as in Saint-Rémy) were "re-constructed" in 1990 for the commemorative shows around the globe: the worst example is the courtyard of the Hotel Dieu, the former hospital of Arles, which served for decades as a parking space, and was then "revitalised" - to match Van Gogh's painting of early 1889, its garden, flowers and even the pool in the middle, with its golden fishes. But - and this seems to be more relevant - the original structure of the Place du Forum remained untouched. The square, its roads and houses are still there, where Van Gogh saw and painted them; all that happened in 1990/1991 were cosmetics. --rpd (talk) 00:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

No: The explanation below the b&w picture of Place Forum is wrong: the café lefthand definitely is not that café as seen by van Gogh but one of the numerous bistrots there without any relation to van Gogh. But it is a proof of the changes: in 1974 Place Forum was parking space crowded with regular traffic. Some years later more and more of the place was used as outside area for the increasing number of restaurants and bars. At the space where the “Café de Terasse” is placed today a hardware store survived the decades and was closed in the late 80's for years. And then suddenly the Cafe was there as painted by van Gogh.

It is unbelievable how people want to believe they see the scene as van Gogh did. No, they definitely don't! This corner of Place Forum is Disney World for adults, and also the rest of Place Forum has changed significantly in the last 30 years.

It is the same as the mock-up of van Goghs Room in one small elder building close the the arena. It is to be expected that we will read in some years that the living room of van Gogh is still available and that he lived close the the arena in Arles. Rolf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.144.139.168 (talk) 17:34, 8 June 2008 (UTC)