Van Gogh’s September 1888 letter to his brother.

Located in Place de la Cavalerie, Van Gogh rented the yellow house for 15 francs a month. In September 1888 he wrote a letter to his beloved brother, Theo including “A sketch of a 30 square canvas representing the house and its setting under a sulphur sun under a pure cobalt sky. The theme is a hard one! But that is exactly why I want to conquer it. Because it is fantastic, these yellow houses in the sun and also the incomparable freshness of the blue. All the ground is yellow too. I will soon send you a better drawing of it than this sketch out of my head.”

The yellow house became a series of oil paintings complete in the same year, and later watercolors. While the exterior of the house was painted in yellow, the inside featured a white lime-washed tone facing the sunlight. To decorate his room, Van Gogh painted portraits as well as sunflowers to please Paul Gauguin, his friend and fellow artist who came to stay with him for only nine weeks.

The Yellow House is a reminder of an important period of Van Gogh’s dramatic life. Van Gogh became known for the distinctive use of yellow and blue. Many of his works created during his stay in Arles where painted in these colours. Van Gogh suffered from Xanthopsia. Side effects of the medical treatment for seizures, or perhaps because of his love of the liquor, absinthe, distorted color in his vision with objects appearing more yellow than they were in reality.

A bomb in World War II destroyed the yellow house. If it had not, it would surely be a museum to the artist today.

The yellow house was Van Gogh’s home for only a couple of months, but of great importance to him. You will see the yellow house before entering the multimedia room of the Van Gogh: Life and Art exhibition at River City Bangkok.