Mystery of the Night Caf�: Hidden Key to the Spirituality of Vincent Van Gogh

by Cliff Edwards, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona (Foreword)

Written like a detective story, this book explores the spirituality of one of the world's most beloved artists, Vincent van Gogh, through one of Western art's most mysterious paintings, The Night Caf�. Done in almost garish colors, the work depicts a late night in a caf� serving a poorer element of society, and Van Gogh himself saw both destructive forces and gaiety in the work. With author Cliff Edwards, we follow a trail of clues from a Yale art gallery to a neighborhood in Arles, from a novel by �mile Zola to a largely forgotten image of Jesus that hung in Van Gogh's bedroom. We enter the imagination of Van Gogh through the books he read, the art he admired, and the people with whom he identified, and arrive at startling conclusions that include a new and deeply spiritual understanding of a caf� after midnight and the night prowlers who inhabit it.

116 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 2009

Reviews

[Harry Allagree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cliff Edwards writes an intriguing analysis & account of Vincent Van Gogh's painting, "Le café de nuit", "The Night Café". He does this, however, through an insightful recounting of Van Gogh's major life experiences & influences, positive & negative, human & artistic, which led to his painting this particular piece over a 3-day period.

Having read Edwards', "Van Gogh's Ghost Paintings" previously, this book continues to provide a deeper understanding of the rich personality of Vincent Van Gogh, whose paintings have long intrigued me. I feel so fortunate in having spent some leisurely time at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam some years ago viewing many of his works first-hand. Edwards' step-by-step reflections on "The Night Café" really puts into perspective what Dr. Diana Apostolos-Cappadona expresses in her perceptive Foreward to the book, entitled "Seeing Mystery: Religion, Aesthetics, and the Experience of Art". It reflects the sentiments of the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, when he commented on Van Gogh's "devotion to what is nearest" when he viewed a portfolio of Van Gogh's prints in 1907.

What Edwards concludes about this painting, "The Night Café", is that: "...Vincent rejected a view of God that equated the divine with 'the inside of a church,' and affirmed the reversal of good and evil in a corrupt society...The mystery of the strange tensions within 'The Night Café' may well reflect the artist's struggle to find a more promising path of spiritual growth than the corrupt system he had encountered..." Vincent Van Gogh actually lived the call to "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; love your neighbor as yourself" throughout his life -- even, one might say, in the experience of eventually taking his own life -- and the reality behind that lived experience couldn't help but emerge on the canvas of his paintings.

Van Gogh's message, visible in both his letters & his paintings, is extremely relevant to this time in world history. In Letter 538, to his brother, Van Gogh noted a basic principle about human beings: "...I tell you, the more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people." He developed that even further in his Letter 161: "...I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife -- whatever you like -- you will be on the way to knowing more about Him, that is what I say to myself. But we must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence; and one must always try to know deeper, better and more. That leads to God, that leads to unwavering faith." Edwards quotes a passage from Meyer Shapiro's book, "Van Gogh" [Doubleday, 1980] which ties this all together: "What is most important is that Van Gogh converted all this aspiration and anguish into his art, which thus became the first example of a truly personal art, art as a deeply lived means of spiritual deliverance or transformation of the self..."