Window in the Bataille Restaurant 1887

Curator: We’re looking at “Window in the Bataille Restaurant,” a pencil and ink drawing from 1887 by Vincent van Gogh. Curator: It’s striking how enclosed and isolated the interior feels, juxtaposed with the lively street scene glimpsed through the window. There's a palpable sense of being on the margins. Curator: Yes, observe Van Gogh’s almost obsessive use of hatching. He's layered the pencil strokes to create a deeply textured surface, particularly in the darker areas surrounding the window frame. It highlights the materiality of the paper itself as a ground, which given his economic status, must have had considerable relevance. Curator: Absolutely. And considering Van Gogh’s own struggles with mental health and social alienation, you have to wonder if this restaurant scene becomes a metaphor for his own position on the fringes of society. He spent time in asylums later, looking in instead of taking part in the bourgeois culture around him. Curator: It is an intriguing space. The emptiness of the chair almost invites us to consider the unseen worker. What labor took place in that room? We aren’t offered any grand statements or heroic imagery. It's this interest in humble subjects that challenges the hierarchies of the traditional art world. Curator: Precisely! It questions who gets to be represented. This window offers a glimpse, but also acts as a barrier. The restaurant, theoretically a place of connection, here presents distance. What are the politics of exclusion being illustrated through the image? The visible street suggests an implicit comment on class, poverty, and accessibility. Curator: What also intrigues me is the line quality itself. You have quick, almost nervous strokes interspersed with more deliberate shading, showing a real physical engagement with the materials. These aspects speak volumes about his artistic process. Curator: It shows the internal tensions inherent within class structures, reflected within that interior world that Van Gogh inhabits here, separated from the activities beyond the glass, literally demarcated and untouchable. Curator: It's this focus on the quotidian details of labour and location, elevated by the drawing technique itself, that I find fascinating. Curator: And for me, the work powerfully shows how identity and social issues are intertwined.