If Illusionist is more than capable of rendering properly lit views of interiors and objects, it must be possible to recreate a well known painting and 'step' into it, exploring views and angles that have never before been seen. This got me thinking and as you can see from the results above, I decided to concentrate on a picture that Vincent Van Gogh painted three times, a view of his bedroom in Arles.

So what did the small table look like if he was sitting on the edge of his bed or what was at the end of the room that we can't see? Although we don't know the answer to the last question, it will be interesting to speculate. As I mentioned earlier, Van Gogh painted this particular scene three times, each one slightly different to the other in terms of floor and wall colouring and even the shapes of the objects on the table. Another well known painting by Van Gogh shows a chair on a red tiled floor, this is probably the floor of his bedroom but the versions he painted of his bedroom show the floor looking more like floorboards than tiles. As luck would have it, Van Gogh wrote numerous letters to his brother Theo and

in these he would write quite passionately about his ideas and plans for paintings, sometimes, as with this particular painting, listing the colours of the objects and surfaces involved. This was obviously a help to me, as I was able to render the scene more accurately than if I had relied on a reproduction picture alone. With this picture, Van Gogh wanted to create an impression of rest and he says in his letter to Theo, 'When you look at the painting, your brain or your imagination should feel rested. The walls are a pale violet colour, the floor is made of red tiles, the wood of the bed and the chairs is the colour of fresh butter, the sheets and pillows are a very pale lemon yellow. The blankets are scarlet, the window green, the dressing table is orange, the wash-basin blue, the doors lilac.'