“White House at Night” by Vincent van Gogh

“White House at Night” by Vincent van Gogh was created six weeks before his death. It is thought that van Gogh painted “White House at Night” around 8:00 PM, based on the position of the “star” in the painting.

Astronomers calculated that the star in the picture must be Venus, which was bright in the evening sky in June 1890. Does this painting express Van Gogh’s psychological tension?

The painting itself has had a turbulent history. In the late 1920s, it became part of a private collection of a German industrialist.

Pictures of this style were labeled “degenerate art” by the Nazis, contributing to this painting and other Post-Impressionism paintings being kept secret.

Thought to have been lost after World War II, the painting was in the Hermitage archives for fifty years before being exhibited in 1995.

At the same Hermitage exhibition, three other Van Gogh’s paintings, also thought to have been lost, were presented for the first time since the war.

They included: “Landscape with House and Ploughman,” “Morning: Going out to Work (After Millet)” and the “Portrait of Madame Trabuc” all by Vincent van Gogh.

White House at Night

Title: White House at Night
Artist: Vincent van Gogh
Year: 1890
Place Created: Auvers-Sur-Oise, France
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions 59 cm × 72.5 cm (23.2 in × 28.5 in)
Museum: Hermitage Museum

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Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh has become among the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. Van Gogh was unsuccessful during his lifetime and was considered a madman and a failure.

He created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life.

They were characterized by bold colors and dramatic, impulsive, and expressive brushwork that contributed to modern art’s foundations.

Vincent van Gogh

Name: Vincent Willem van Gogh
Born: 1853 – Zundert, Netherlands
Died: 1890 (aged 37) – Auvers-Sur-Oise, France
Resting place: Cimetière d’Auvers-Sur-Oise, Auvers-Sur-Oise, France
Nationality: Dutch
Movement: Post-Impressionism
Notable works:
- Starry Night
- Starry Night Over the Rhône
- Sunflowers
- Irises (Getty Museum)
- Self Portrait, dedicated to Paul Gauguin
- Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin
- White House at Night
- The Night Café
- Self-Portrait as a Painter
- Self Portrait with Felt Hat
- Green Wheat Field with Cypress
- The Raising of Lazarus
- Self-Portrait’ Mutilated Ear
- Café Terrace at Night
- Tarascon Stagecoach
- Wheatfield with Crows
- Bedroom in Arles
- Portrait of the Artist’s Mother
- Vase with Red Poppies
- Memory of the Garden at Etten
- Great Peacock Moth
- Farmhouse in Provence
- Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin
- Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries
- Seascape at Saintes-Maries
- Girl in White
- Young Peasant Woman with Straw Hat Sitting in the Wheat
- Van Gogh’s Chair
- Gauguin’s Chair
- Road with Cypress and Star
- Almond Blossoms