“The White House at Night”
Van Gogh….
“The White House at Night” is an 1890 oil on canvas painting by the Dutch artist, Vincent Van Gogh.
In May of 1890, Van Gogh discharged himself from the asylum in Saint-Rémy and moved to Auvers-sur-Oise just outside of Paris to be closer to his brother. Van Gogh did a series of house paintings while in Auvers-sur-Oise and this is one of the later ones, painted in June. It was actually painted just six weeks before he died.
In this painting, Van Gogh paints an outdoor scene of a white house and the streets in front of it in the early night. Two women are standing at the gate entrance to the house, and a third woman is walking past the house, her face visible to the viewer. Two of the windows on the second floor are filled in with a deep red color. Since we know the exact date (June 16, 1890) and time (8 pm) this was made, researchers have been able to identify the single bright light radiations in the night sky to be the star, Venus.
Notice his thick brush strokes, his familiar dashed rings around the star, and the mood on the face of the woman. The painting has thick layers of paint, with Van Gogh’s brush strokes and knife edges still visible in the paint, a technique known as impasto.
In the late 1920s, this painting was in the private collection of Otto Krebs, a German industrialist. After the Nazi’s took over just prior to WWII, this type of art was seen as degenerate, so Krebs hid his collection to keep the work safe. The Soviets confiscated a large number of paintings from Germany after the war, including this piece. Its location was unknown until 1995 when it was displayed at an art exhibition at the Hermitage Museum.
“The White House at Night” is currently on display at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
For more on Vincent Van Gogh, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
