I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.

Vincent van Gogh expressed this sentiment in his correspondence while living in Arles in 1888, a period when he was intensely preoccupied with painting nocturnal scenes. In letters discussing his plans and experiments with night effects—gaslight, starry skies, and deep blues and violets—he argues against the convention that night is simply dark. The remark reflects his practical painter’s concern with how artificial light and twilight transform color relationships, as well as his emotional attraction to the heightened atmosphere of evening streets and skies that culminated in works like his night café and starry-night studies.

The quote overturns the assumption that daylight is the fullest register of life and color. For van Gogh, night does not erase color; it reorganizes it—intensifying contrasts, saturating hues, and making points of light (stars, lamps, windows) feel charged with presence. The statement also hints at a psychological truth: darkness can sharpen perception and feeling, making the world seem more vivid rather than less. In his art, this becomes an aesthetic program—using bold, non-naturalistic color to convey the “life” of a scene as experienced, not merely as observed.