Night Café is an excellent example of the distinct “expressionist” style of Vincent van Gogh; the artist employed vibrant colors and bold, experimental brushwork in order to communicate certain emotions to the viewer. He produced this work in 1888, after he had moved to Arles in southern France. Although the subject of an interior may seem mundane, van Gogh’s depiction produces an effect of intense anxiety and discomfort. He described this scene as “a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime”, and he communicated this view with a exaggerated, arbitrary colors and bold, crude brushstrokes. In a letter to his brother Theo, he explains how his choice and juxtaposition of vibrant colors: “I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green. The room is blood red and dark yellow with a green billiard table in the middle; there are four citron-yellow lamps with a glow of orange and green. Everywhere there is a clash and contrast of the most disparate reds and greens in the figures of little sleeping hooligans, in the empty dreary room, in violent and blue.” He deliberately distorted the room's and figures' proportions and gave the room a sharply slanted perspective that threatens the viewer’s space. ; 2' 4-1/2'' x 3'