Location📍 Van Gogh Museum → Now on display

The Yellow House (The Street)

In May 1888, Vincent van Gogh rented four rooms in a house on Place Lamartine in Arles, southern France. The green shutters in the painting indicate where Vincent van Gogh lived. Shortly after moving into the ‘Yellow House’, Vincent van Gogh sent Theo a description and sketch of this painting, describing it as 'tremendous,' noting the yellow houses in the sunlight and the incomparable freshness of the blue.

Vincent van Gogh, who called this work ‘The Street’, records the artist’s immediate surroundings: Vincent van Gogh often ate at the restaurant on the left, and the home of Vincent van Gogh's friend, the postman Joseph Roulin, lay just beyond the second railway bridge.

Vincent van Gogh had finally found a place at the Yellow House where Vincent van Gogh could not only paint but also have Vincent van Gogh's friends come to stay. Vincent van Gogh's plan was to turn the yellow corner-building into an artists’ house, where like-minded painters could live and work together.