This is one of Van Gogh’s most popular paintings, and it was one of his own personal favourites.
In fact, he produced three painted versions of his bedroom in the “Yellow House” in Arles. The first version of it was painted while living there, and two later versions were made while at the asylum at Saint-Rémy. For him, it was a painting that conveyed “absolute restfulness” using simple, flat areas of colour. He also made ink sketches of the bedroom, included in letters he sent to both his brother and to Gauguin.
The door seen on the right opened onto the landing and the staircase to the ground floor. The door at left led to the guest room where Gauguin stayed, and the window looked out onto public gardens. The work’s exaggerated sense of receding perspective is because the bedroom was not rectangular, but shaped like a trapezoid.
The bedroom paintings are among very few examples where Van Gogh depicts his own paintings within an artwork. From version to version, he varied the paintings hanging above his bed. In the third version, at left, he included a recently painted self-portrait. He sent this painting within a painting, and the actual self-portrait, to his mother, perhaps to indicate that he was recovering well at the asylum.