Van Gogh's Three Bedroom Paintings
or how the same painting is never the same
By Darius Varize
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| 3 paintings, all not the same |
Van Gogh’s “The Bedroom” is a strange painting to think about for a multitude of reasons. To start, it’s not even really one painting, but three. You may have heard stories about the man's ear or his starry paintings, but here is another fascinating story and one that is not often told. In 1888, he moved into a new boarding house and a new bedroom and decided to make a painting of it. He did so without any expectations for it; he just wanted to document his new life in a new living arrangement. That place was called Yellow House, in Arles, France Van Gogh had planned it as a place for artists to stay and work. During this period, he made about, “200 paintings and 100 drawings in 444 days.” Paul Gaugin joined him and they worked together peacefully for a short time, which is amazing given the personalities involved, but what we really care about is how much Van Gogh loved his bedroom.
In fact, he was so enamored with the idea of his bedroom that he attempted to capture the essence of it in three separate paintings, at least as far as we know. Knowing artists, he probably had three hundred more versions in his head. But I want to look at these three paintings in particular, and analyze them because I think that they can tell us a great deal about how Van Gogh thinks and is a rare chance to understand the various ways in which he would try to attack an object, or a vision, or a landscape, or in this case, his bedroom. I found this painting in my first year of college, and fell in love with it immediately.
After painting "The Bedroom", Van Gogh knew he had gold on his hands, and became even more confident about it when Gaugin said he was onto something even bigger than documenting his new life in the Yellow House. During their time at the yellow house, Yellow House flooded, leaving the painting and several other works water damaged. Van Gogh asked his brother Theo to help save what remained of the painting by reinforcing it with lining. Theo saw how meaningful the work was and suggested that his brother attempt to create a second version of the painting before tackling such a risky procedure. The nervous Van Gogh hesitated at first but in 1889 he created the second version of "The Bedroom". This time it captured everything that was intriguing in the first painting, only now he painted it with more accurate lines, and a slightly duller pallet. This painting feels a bit gloomier than others, possibly because it is less saturated with yellows. It has far more lines than the first bedroom and even more texture to the floor and ceiling.
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| The Second |
The last rendition of "The Bedroom" is one of Van Gogh's most overlooked pieces. Three weeks after he painted the second version of "The Bedroom", Van Gogh created the last version of the bedroom on a slightly smaller scale for his mother and sister. This version was intended simply to decorate the home of his loved ones. Although Gogh did not intend it, these gifts would eventually tell a story of his evolution as an artist.
When looking at all three of the paintings side by side, it may not be obvious that they are really very different. But if your eye is patient and you stop to ponder, you will begin to see the intricacies and qualities that set them apart. Almost like a classic game of spot the difference without a key to reference, because the differences are less about the objects and so much more about the execution. It may also cross the viewer’s mind that if the differences are so miniscule, what is the point of any version after the first? But no matter how close they are, these differences echo loudly and bring something new to the table.
In the first version, we can feel the mood of the room, the foot of the bed draws us into the corner, then we are forced to look at a thick line of cobalt blue indicating the right wall. Then we observe the window sitting to the left of the headboard. It is the only part of the painting that is illuminated, but it gives us a sense that this must be during the evening. It is as if you can tell Gogh painted it in his leisure, settling into his new home and ready to begin his new life. He was probably excited by this side of the room because of its organic and hazy appearance. My favorite part of this painting is that it feels like someone just stepped out for the moment, maybe for a smoke, but we as the viewer know that someone was just there. The disheveled sheets, the off-kilter furniture, and the open window all make the room breath. There is a warm presence that lingers on the paint chipped floor boards, to the wonky painted chairs, and even the angel of the perspective.
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| The face of an artist who couldn't stop |
The second version is probably the loosest of the three and stands out the most in my opinion. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to replicate the original feeling behind the first. So, I want you to look at the upper right corner of the painting: there are no lines. The corner of the room is left up to us to imagine, and we do through how Van Gogh varies the brightness and the textures of his blues. These lines are soft and blend into one another. Within these softer lines the oil paint has been blended on the surface, giving the wood a toothpaste like quality. The colors are more muted than the first and so the combination of the lines and the duller colors, it would be easy to consider that perhaps Gogh did not have the same feelings about this room that he might have had initially. But I would also say that he is growing in feeling and experience.
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| Three is perfect |
The last version of "The Bedroom" loses its harsher lines and instead uses a softer aesthetic that is reminiscent of the first painting. This painting reflects what might be perceived as added pressure or maybe just cleaning up loose ends of the previous versions. But, where it loses character in lines, it gains in colors that seem slightly brighter than its predecessors, possibly because he knew his mother was going to use this to decorate her home. To say that this one is more complete than the other two paintings is a little unfair, but I will say that Van Gogh seemed relatively more careful when paying attention to perspective. Compositionally, it seems like he took the two previous paintings took what he liked the most, and applied that to what we see here. The lines are cleaner and tighter. And if we look even closer at the paintings on the right wall, we see a clear self-portrait of the artist, which is quite different from the first bedroom. It looks like a homage to a self-portrait he did in the same year. This in itself shows how much the painter felt confidence in his work. Let’s take a step back and look at the paint itself. It seems to have been built with much globbier chunks of paint, giving the last painting more texture and a sense of tactility. The golden buttery pigment on top of the rich burgundy, in contrast with the blue, gives it a luscious and refined look.
The three bedrooms are more than paintings, they are a map of VG creative process and how he was experiencing life from moment to moment. And as artist, these three works by one of the best painters of all times, are the ones I go to when I want to think and relax. That being said, although his work may not have been completely accepted at the time, he still remains one of the most notable artists in history.
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