The Night Café in Arles

Gauguin painted this in the autumn of 1888, during the few weeks he shared the Yellow House in Arles with Vincent van Gogh, before their famous quarrel sent him packing. The cafe stood by the station, across from Van Gogh's rooms, and both men painted it. In the foreground sits Madame Ginoux, who ran the place. Behind her the bearded man in the cap is Roulin, the local postman Van Gogh painted several times. Van Gogh had made the same cafe a room of loneliness under harsh light. Gauguin fills it instead with easy company, the drinkers leaning together at the back. He signed the picture twice, once on each of the tables.