''The Yellow House'' ( nl, Het gele huis), alternatively named ''The Street'' ( nl, De straat), is an 1888
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
by the 19th-century Dutch
Post-Impressionist
Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...
painter
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...
.
The house was the right wing of 2 Place Lamartine,
Arles
Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...
, France, where, on May 1, 1888, van Gogh rented four rooms. He occupied two large ones on the ground floor to serve as an
atelier
An atelier () is the private workshop or studio of a professional artist in the fine or decorative arts or an architect, where a principal master and a number of assistants, students, and apprentices can work together producing fine art or v ...
(workshop) and kitchen, and on the first floor, two smaller ones facing Place Lamartine. The window on the first floor nearest the corner with both shutters open is that of van Gogh's guest room, where
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...
lived for nine weeks from late October 1888. Behind the next window, with shutters nearly closed, is van Gogh's
bedroom
A bedroom or bedchamber is a room situated within a residential or accommodation unit characterised by its usage for sleeping and sexual activity. A typical western bedroom contains as bedroom furniture one or two beds (ranging from a crib for ...
. The two small rooms at the rear were rented by van Gogh at a later time.
Van Gogh indicated that the restaurant where he used to have his meals was in the building painted pink, close to the left edge of the painting (28 Place Lamartine). It was run by Widow Venissac, who was also van Gogh's landlady, and who owned several of the other buildings depicted.
To the right of the Yellow House, the Avenue Montmajour runs down to the two railway bridges. The first line (with a train just passing) served the local connection to Lunel, which is on the opposite (that is, right) bank of river Rhône. The other line was owned by the P.-L.-M. Railway Company (''Paris Lyon Méditerranée'').
In the left foreground is an indication of the corner of the pedestrian walk which surrounded one of the public gardens on Place Lamartine. The ditch running up Avenue Montmajour from the left towards the bridges served the gas pipe, which allowed van Gogh a little later to have gaslight installed in his atelier.
The building was severely damaged in a bombing raid by the
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
on June 25, 1944, and was later demolished.
Genesis
![Vincent van Gogh - Letter VGM 491 - The Yellow House F1453 JH 1590](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Letter_VGM_491_-_The_Yellow_House_F1453_JH_1590.jpg)
The painting was executed in September 1888, at which time van Gogh sent a sketch of the composition to his brother Theo:.
![Vincent's House in Arles (The Yellow House)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Vincent%27s_House_in_Arles_%28The_Yellow_House%29.jpg)
Initially, van Gogh titled the painting as ''The House and its environment'' (French: ''La Maison et son entourage''). Later he opted for a more meaningful title and called it ''The Street'' (French: ''La Rue''), paying ''homage'' to a suite of sketches showing streets in Paris, by
Jean-François Raffaëlli
Jean-François Raffaëlli (April 20, 1850 – February 11, 1924) was a French realist painter, sculptor, and printmaker who exhibited with the Impressionists. He was also active as an actor and writer.
Biography
Born in Paris, he was of Tusc ...
, and recently published in ''
Le Figaro
''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of reco ...
''.
Pedigree
This painting never left the artist's estate. Since 1962, it has been in the possession of the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, established by Vincent Willem van Gogh, the artist's nephew, and on permanent loan to the
Van Gogh Museum
The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened on ...
, Amsterdam.
Since the 1940s
The Yellow House itself no longer exists. It was severely damaged in bombing-raids during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, and later demolished. The place without the house looks almost the same. A placard on the scene commemorates its former existence.
The Yellow House is gone
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Resources
Notes
References
* Dorn, Roland: ''Décoration: Vincent van Gogh's Werkreihe für das Gelbe Haus in Arles'', Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, Zürich & New York 1990 / ISSN 0175-9558
External links
''The Yellow House''
at the Van Gogh Museum
The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened on ...
website
References in collected letters
at the Van Gogh Museum
The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened on ...
letters website
Commemorative plaque
near location where the house once stood
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yellow House
1888 paintings
Paintings by Vincent van Gogh
Collections of the Van Gogh Museum
Paintings of Arles by Vincent van Gogh
Bridges in art
Trains in art