Restaurant de la Sirène à Asnières

Van Gogh painted the Restaurant de la Sirène in Asnières during the summer of 1887 when he and Émile Bernard often walked from Paris to paint the working-class suburban town on the Seine together. The painting marks a decisive moment in his colour development: the Paris Impressionists, especially Monet and Pissarro, had shown him how to lighten his palette, and the restaurant facade becomes an opportunity for pure colour notation — complementary contrasts of orange-red against blue, vivid greens, bright whites. The subject matter — a modest suburban eatery rather than a grand café — also reflects his democratic instincts about subject matter.

Short, comma-like Impressionist strokes of high-key colour build the facade and foliage. The complementary opposition of red and green is used throughout the composition. Shadows are rendered in blue rather than grey, demonstrating Van Gogh's full absorption of Impressionist colour theory.