The Yellow House, Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent immediately takes to life in Arles. In March, he writes to Theo: “Here, there is everything I want in terms of nature, the big, sun-drenched landscapes, the skies of a blue like a piece of Japonaiserie." At first, he stayed at the hotel-restaurant Carrel and then moved to some rooms above the Café de la Garre. By May, he rented a studio in the Yellow House, which he finally moved into permanently, renting four rooms alongside his studio.

This early period in Arles is highly productive for Vincent. He writes to Theo and speaks of “An art of unbounded joy in life’, and during this time, he painted some of his most touching works. As the days warmed, he packed up his easel and paintbrushes and sat in the fields, painting peasants at work in the wheatfields, the blossoming trees, numerous still lifes, and the famous View of Arles with Irises in the foreground. 

But despite this, Vincent begins to feel isolated, and he complains of loneliness. He starts to dream of his Studio of the South, and the same day that he moves his studio into the Yellow House, he mentions in passing in a letter to Theo the idea that Paul Gauguin, a personal artistic hero of his, could leave his current residence in Brittany and stay with him. Over the next couple of months, this offhand remark becomes more and more insistent. He writes to Gauguin in September, saying “I must tell you that even while working I think continually about the plan of setting up a studio in which you and I will be permanent residents, but which both of us want to turn into a shelter and refuge for friends, against the times when they find that the struggle is getting too much for them.”

The Yellow House’s colour palette is lovingly simple, a yellow house on a yellow street standing in front of a yellow railway bridge; yellows upon yellows, upon yellows. Here we get a window into the artist’s life, the everyday locations where he spent his time. The building in the centre of the frame is the Yellow House itself, the room on the far right of the building with green shutters thrown open is the guest room, and the window to the left, shutters closed, is Van Gogh’s bedroom.

This is a hopeful painting. It depicts the place where Vincent hoped his Studio of the South would be born, the bright yellows reflecting the artist’s anticipation and optimism, the green shutters and the garden representing the fundamental reliance of the artist on inspiration from the natural world. But notice the wide streets, look how wide open and quiet they are, just a few people going about their business, the empty blue sky yawning above. For now, Vincent is lonely in Arles, his utopian dream as yet unrealised. But then, finally, in late October, he receives the letter he’s been waiting for: Gauguin has agreed to come and stay in the Yellow House.