Van Gogh has studiously swapped in these windows and drawn curtains for a pair of formidable, 1st-Century Corinthian columns, complete with intricate capitals and cornice, and a striking fragment of a pediment, salvaged from the ruins of a Roman temple that adjoined the ancient forum and inserted into the façade of what was the Hôtel du Nord. Prominently visible from his vantage, these spolia, as they are known, or picturesquely repositioned relics from antiquity, would likely have preoccupied the brush of almost any other artist. But they have no place in a painting that refuses to be weighed down by the past. In Van Gogh’s work, you can look back, but it’s best not to stare.
