Two Years in Provence

Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers at the National Gallery in London -- heavily hyped and certainly extremely popular. So is it worth the fairly hefty ticket price? Very much so. This is a beautifully put-together illustrated narrative of the two years Vincent spent in Provence, the peak period of his short career, from early 1888 to spring 1890. There are major paintings from galleries far and wide, and pictures you may never have seen before from private collections. It's not a big show -- only 61 works, just under a quarter of which are on paper -- but it is gorgeous. 

From the National's description of the exhibition, with its reference to "bringing together your most loved of Van Gogh’s paintings from across the globe," you might be expecting an all-encompassing retrospective. But there are no pictures from the start of Vincent's artistic life in the Netherlands, from his time in Paris, or from his last few weeks in Auvers-sur-Oise before he died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. This is Van Gogh in Arles, at the Yellow House he shared for a while with Paul Gauguin, and at the asylum in Saint-Rémy. And while there is a Starry Night to gaze at, it's not The Starry Night you might perhaps have hoped for, from MoMA in New York.

So many astonishing paintings, it's hard to know where to start. Perhaps with a picture we're not conscious of coming across before, one from a private collection, filled with startling colour and three-dimensional brushstrokes, depicting a glowing orange sunset across the expanse of the River Rhône in Arles. 

"I saw a magnificent and very strange effect this evening," Van Gogh wrote of the scene he immortalised in The Stevedores. "It was pure Hokusai." Or indeed, quintessential Van Gogh. Amid the orange are swiftly applied dashes of red, blue and mauve and above all that is a block of pale green that doesn't look out of place, even if the entire assemblage must have been shocking to many of Van Gogh's contemporaries. 

And here, also in Arles, is that other Starry Night, the one over the Rhône, on loan from the Musée d’Orsay. 

Those stars bursting in the night sky are one thing, but step back from close up and let the rough, thick brushstrokes blend together to depict the lights reflected on the rippling dark water. "The starry sky at last, actually painted at night, under a gas-lamp," Van Gogh wrote. And a pair of lovers, hopefully not star-crossed, in the foreground.  

Ah yes, lovers and poets, for that is the title of the exhibition. We'll get back to that in a minute, though it's a wee bit of a red herring in the total scheme of things here. 

Vincent developed plans to turn the studio in The Yellow House he'd rented in Arles into something bigger, somewhere artists could live and work together.  

And he had distinct ideas about the decor, too, planning which of his paintings would adorn the walls, even in imagined pictures painted in the asylum. Sunflowers played a big part, with what is now the National Gallery's version hung in the guest bedroom to welcome Gauguin. He devised a scheme for a triptych, with two pictures of sunflowers flanking La Berceuse (The Lullaby). In The Bedroom, on loan from Chicago, you can discern one of Vincent's self-portraits hanging above the bed. 

An earlier version of The Bedroom, which hasn't made the trip from Amsterdam, has different pictures on the walls. There's The Poet, actually a portrait of the Belgian painter Eugène Boch. Vincent felt Boch looked like Dante and thus had the ideal face to embody a poet, in front of a starry sky, expressing a man "who dreams great dreams".

And alongside The Poet above the bed, and in the first room of this show, we see The Lover, a portrait of a certain Lieutenant Milliet, to whom Vincent gave drawing lessons in Arles, and whose success with women he was envious of.  

Between these two portraits in the show is hung a painting of the public garden in front of the Yellow House, described by Van Gogh as The Poet's Garden, but this poets-and-lovers theme seems to fade as you wander through the exhibition, which is, unlike many blockbusters, relatively easy to get round. The works are well spaced out, so that despite the crowds there is plenty of room to stand and admire each canvas, even if you might need to wait your turn briefly for one or two. 

Something you really need to appreciate close up is the thickness of the paint that Van Gogh applied, especially in many of the garden and landscape scenes on display, with the intense impasto giving the vegetation solidity and texture, as well as an emotional depth and poignancy, when you consider that a large number of these works were executed while he was receiving treatment following his mental breakdown. 

There's quite an oppressive feel to this view of the hospital, hemmed in and dwarfed by these massive pine trees. You can, to an extent, feel the mood swings as you look at certain paintings from these key months in Van Gogh's life. 

And there are surprises all the way through, such as this somewhat off-kilter still life, which we probably wouldn't have picked out as a Van Gogh, were it not for the signature in the top left. This is one of two paintings in the show from the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation Collection in Athens. 

The other work from the Goulandris collection, showing an avenue through the Roman tombs of The Alyscamps in Arles, is equally striking.

So, don't delay; you won't want to miss this excellent exhibition. Get on the National Gallery booking website here as soon as you can because you'll absolutely need to reserve tickets in advance; many days are already completely sold out. 

Practicalities

Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers continues at the National Gallery in London until January 19; the museum is closed December 24-26 and January 1. The show is open daily from 1000 to 1800, but the booking page shows admission tickets for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are now available until 2000. The gallery website suggests 50-60 minutes as the length for your visit, but that would be very rushed; we spent 90 minutes in the show and could have stayed longer. Prices appear to vary according to timeslot, but expect to pay at least £24 for a standard ticket without Gift Aid.

The National Gallery is on the north side of Trafalgar Square, just a couple of minutes from Charing Cross or Leicester Square stations on the rail and Underground networks.

Images

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), The Stevedores, 1888, Private collection
Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night over the Rhône, 1888, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Vincent van Gogh, The Yellow House (The Street), 1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation). © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent Van Gogh Foundation)
Vincent van Gogh, The Poet (Portrait of Eugène Boch), 1888, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay)/Adrien Didierjean
Vincent van Gogh, The Lover (Portrait of Lieutenant Milliet), 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo. © Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands. Photographer: Rik Klein Gotink
Vincent van Gogh, Hospital at Saint-Rémy, 1889, The Armand Hammer Collection, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Vincent van Gogh, Still Life with Coffee Pot, 1888, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation Collection, Athens