Preceding his iconicStarry Night, and with the intention of turning the traditional nighttime painting in shades of black and gray on its head, Vincent van Gogh used an array of colors to articulate the lamplit patio of a caf in Arles, France. While many nocturnal paintings of the time were sketched during the day, he wrote in a letter to his sister about this piece, I enormously enjoy painting on the spot at night. In fact, Van Gogh painted the constellations just as they appeared in the sky on that autumn evening; the positioning has been traced by astronomers to September 16 or 17, 1888.