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Vincent's Bedroom in Arles - Vincent van Gogh (1888-1889)
Vincent's Bedroom in Arles is the name of three paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, created between 1888 and 1889. The various objects depicted narrate van Gogh's usual morning routine. The first object that catches the viewer's eye is the wooden bed, on the right, freshly made after a night’s sleep: “and here is your ark, like a sumptuous lair of a stray dog, where I see you resting exhausted, with skin burnt by the elements after a day in a sunflower field, or who knows, where your restless wandering leads you,” whispers a critic from Rai Arte in an imaginary conversation with the painter. Behind this, there is a coat rack, from which some everyday clothing hangs alongside the famous straw hat that van Gogh had used to paint himself a year earlier, in 1887. From the wall next to the bed, loom a self-portrait of the painter, the portrait of an unknown woman, and two Japanese prints, a genre of which Vincent was an ardent enthusiast: their “flat colors that harmonize,” shining with an internal light, had a lasting echo on his art. On the back wall, there hangs another painting, carelessly displaying a landscape. Continuing the view to the left, we find a window: Vincent leaves it ajar, suggesting the existence of other spaces, inevitably foreign to the painted surface, and especially to allow the painting to “breathe,” “eliminating any risk of perceptual claustrophobia” (Federica Armiraglio). Further to the left, there is a dirty white mirror hanging on the wall, and beneath it stands a small table bearing washbasin items, with a bowl, a pitcher, a glass, a bottle, a plate, and a brush atop it. Always to the left, finally, there is a towel hanging from a nail and a door left half-open. The view is completed by two wicker chairs, one placed next to the bed (Vincent perhaps used it as an emergency bedside table) and the other against the wall. They are empty: they are, in fact, an obsessive metaphor of absence, perhaps of his friend Gauguin, perhaps of the woman of his life, so long fantasized about, but never met. [Source Wikipedia]
Associated LP of 1987