An Unsettled Spirit

Café Terrace at Night

Vincent Van Gogh has been celebrated in film and song for more than half a century.

His paintings command the highest prices in auction, his striking style is commonly recognizable, and his personal story--mental illness, unrequited love, self-mutilation, suicide--is the stuff of drama. Less popularly known are his Christian faith and the Christian themes that run throughout his oeuvre.

Van Gogh’s explicitly Christian works include “The Raising of Lazarus,” “The Good Samaritan” and two versions of “Pietà,” one of which hangs in the Vatican. Others are at least implicitly religious. About 30 versions of “The Sower” show a peasant at work. They also suggest the parable from the Gospels. Renderings of gardens and olive trees invoke Gethsemane. Paintings of irises may simply be paintings of irises—but the flowers tend to bloom around Easter and many believers associate them with the resurrection of Jesus.

Close-up of "Last Supper" section
of Café Terrace at Night

“Café Terrace at Night” is another magnum opus with a possibly hidden meaning. It arguably belongs to the starry-night genre, with its glimpse of the cool heavens above a warmly lit coffeehouse in Arles. Near its center, a man stands before a window with muntins that form a cross and beneath a gas lamp that could be a halo. A dozen seated diners surround him. A shadowy 13th figure darkens a doorway. Independent researcher Jared Baxter has called this Van Gogh’s “Symbolist Last Supper,” representing Jesus, the apostles and Judas.

Great artists try to convey deep truths in their work, and the act of doing so can make for an unsettled spirit.