THE BEDROOM
Painted in October 1888;
Oil on canvas,
72x90 cm
Here is half of the whole picture.
Finish it using a pencil.
Here is the original painting:
Whose bedroom is it?
The bedroom
belongs to the
artist Vincent
van Gogh. When
he painted it, he
was living in
Arles, a town in
Provence, in the
south of France.
Try to describe the bedroom
It’s a very tidy bedroom.
By painting my bedroom where
everything is in its place, I am showing
that I have now decided to take care of
myself and to organize my life properly.
I haven’t got a house my own.
I am a real bohemian artist.
This is the house!
What do the colors look like, pretty or
not?
The weather in Holland, where
I was born, is not always good,
so here I am, in Provence, in
search of sunshine. That’s the
reason I love having a bedroom
so full of light and bursting
colors.
Name all the furniture you can see in the
bedroom.
There isn’t much furniture.
I am very poor so I only have
the essentials, and what I
have is very plain furniture.
Of course there is a bed, and
there are also two chairs, in
case someone comes to visit
me.
There are paintings on the walls.
I spend all my time painting. It is
the thing I love most in the
whole world. For me it is
unthinkable to live in a place
without paintings. On the righthand side there are two
portraits of friends and
underneath are drawings, done
on paper. On the back wall there
is a landscape.
Why are my belongings in pairs?
There are two chairs, two pillows, two
portraits on the wall, two drawings and
even two doors.
I don’t share the bedroom with anyone
but maybe multiplying everything by two
makes me feel less lonely.
There is nothing to suggest it is a
painter’s bedroom.
There is no way of knowing that it’s
an artist´s bedroom because my
materials are not on display. We
can not see any colored pencils or
paint brushes. I use to work
outside for many hours every day. I
want my bedroom for relaxation,
for making myself feel comfortable
and for sleeping peacefully.
It’s a very simple picture.
The objects are very normal, and
the colors are flat, without any
tones.
I want my pantings to be easy to
understand. The outlines of the
colors are easy to follow, because
I generally use thick lines.
Do people like my paintings?
When Van Gogh died in 1890, he only sold
one painting.
People normally find them
frightening, but very few
people actually know my
own paintings. When I
finish one panting, I use
to send it to my brother
Teo in Paris.
How did van Gogh become so
famous?
People only began to appreciate the impact
of his work after he died. He was terribly
lonely and finally he committed suicide,
still unknown to the world.
Almost fifty years later, people started to
see him like a hero, and to appreciate his
work. There are also some movies about
him. Our feelings about him today go
beyond the pictures he painted.
Is it true that van Gogh was mad?
Can you see a
bandage
around his
ear?
Do you know
what
happened?
He was anxious and psychologically
fragile, and he suffered a great deal.
During the time that he was alive,
doctors didn’t know how to properly
treat mental and emotional problems.
But when he painted, he knew exactly
what he wanted to do and why, and he
was extraordinary sensitive and
intelligent.