Van Gogh, Poets & Lovers, at the National Gallery

Ellie & I recently visited the lovely exhibition “Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers” at the National Gallery, which will be showing until 19 January 2025. Standard tickets have now sold out, however, you could become a National Gallery member for £68 (Direct Debit; £78 if paying by credit card) per person, and get free access to this and other exhibitions, even on officially sold out dates. Alternatively, you could find a movie theatre near you that is showing David Bickerstaff’s documentary about the show.

   

Pic #1 Portrait of a Peasant (Patience Escalier); pic #2 The Lover (Portrait of Lieutenant Milliet);

pic #3 The Poet (Portrait of Eugene Boch).

 

VAN GOGH, POETS AND LOVERS, AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY, SHOWS ALMOST 50 PAINTINGS

Poets & Lovers managed to gather 47 paintings and 14 drawings from all over the world. What a great way to celebrate the National Gallery’s 200^th Anniversary. 47 paintings, that’s only about 6% of the paintings Van Gogh created throughout the ten years when he was creative. There were other major Van Gogh exhibitions over the past few years, at least one of them bigger: the Detroit Institute of Art’s exhibition “Van Gogh in America” 2022 to 2023, and, interestingly, one, Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise, His Final Months, which finished earlier this year at Musée d’Orsay, with precisely the same number of oil paintings.

   

Pic #1 Starry Night over the Rhone; pic #2 Self Portrait; pic #3 The Bedroom. 

 

WHAT MAKES THIS VAN GOGH EXHIBITION SO SPECIAL?

However, those exhibitions focused on art held by U.S. museums and collectors, on the periods while the big man stayed in Paris or the Netherlands, or they focused on much shorter periods, like the Final Months exhibition. The paintings shown at the National Gallery at the moment, are all from the artist’s last three years, 1888 to 1890, when he had developed his unique style to perfection. He had moved to Provence in February 1988, living in Arles and Saint-Remy-de-Provence, two beautiful towns Ellie & I visited for the first time around this time last year. You can find a large number of masterpieces here, like the National Gallery’s own Sunflowers, The Bedroom, his self-portrait, or Starry Night over the Rhone.

   

Pic #1 View of Arles; pic #2 Sunflowers; pic #3 Field with Poppies (partial view).

 

QUEUING FOR 45 MINUTES  FOR VAN GOGH, POETS AND LOVERS, AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY

After queuing with other ticketholders for around 45 minutes (the queue was about 250 metres long and started in a small side street away from Trafalgar Square towards Pall Mall) we arrived at the first of 6 showrooms. Our worries that we’d be trampled by hordes of visitors luckily proved to be entirely unfounded. The rooms weren’t any more crowded than the ones at any other London art exhibition during a busy time. There was plenty of space and you never felt rushed moving from one painting to the next.

   

Pic #1 The Poet’s Garden (Public Garden in Arles); pic #2 Sunflowers; pic #3 Oleanders.

 

A USEFUL FREE BOOKLET FOR ALL VISITORS OF VAN GOGH, POETS AND LOVERS, AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY

We liked the fact that you were given a free booklet with one paragraph about each painting, enabling you to find out more, when you felt like it. On the other hand, the description tags next to each work only contained the name of the painting, the year, and the name of the institution or collector who had loaned the work. The curators’ aim was to let visitors focus on each painting, rather than on the artist’s torment and struggles.

   

Pic #1 The Arlesienne (1889); pic #3 The Arlesienne (1890).

 

ROOM 1 KICKS THE EXHIBITION OFF WITH POETS AND LOVERS

Each of the six gallery rooms has a different focus. Room 1 is the “Introduction” and the first two paintings that greet you when you enter are The Lover (Portrait of Lieutenant Milliet) (1888) and Poet’s Garden (Public Garden in Arles) (1888). From the booklet we learn that Van Gogh and Milliet had become friends in Arles. The Dutch dude admired the dashing lieutenant for his success with women and gave him drawing lessons.

   

Pic #1 A Wheatfield with Cypresses; pic #2 Landscape from Saint-Remy (Wheatfield behind Saint-

Paul Hospital); pic #3 Still Life with Coffee Pot.

 

The unremarkable public garden in front of Van Gogh’s home in Arles was given the name ‘Poet’s Garden’ by the home owner himself, who used his wild imagination to turn it into something much bigger and more beautiful than what it was. The third painting, The Poet (Portrait of Eugene Boch) (1888), shows Van Gogh’s newly acquired Belgian painter friend who had been visiting from Paris at the time. Apparently the master, who is known to have drawn much of his inspiration from poetry and literature, was reminded of 13^th Century poet Dante Alighieri by Boch’s narrow face.

   

Pic #1 Landscape at Saint-Remy (Enclosed Field with Peasant); pic #2 Landscape with Ploughman;

pic #3 Mountains at Saint-Remy.

 

ROOMS 2 AND 3 AT VAN GOGH, POETS AND LOVERS, AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY

Room 2 “The Garden: Poetic Interpretations” explores how Van Gogh, often inspired by poetry, had no interest in realistic depictions and was instead focused mainly on expressing emotions and sometimes meaning.

   

Pic #1 The Olive Trees; pic #2 Long Grass with Butterflies; pic #3 Olive Trees. 

 

Room 3 “The Yellow House: An Artist’s Home” shows paintings involving the house in Arles which Van Gogh used as his residence and for which he had great plans of turning it into a ‘communal studio of the South,’ where his artist friends from Paris could join him to work. We see Van Gogh’s Chair (1888), one of the first two Van Gogh paintings acquired by the National Gallery, his famous The Bedroom (1889), The Yellow House (The Street) (1888), but also ‘Starry Night over the Rhone’ (1888), which, we presume, simply hung on the walls of the Yellow House.

   

Pic #1 Olive Trees; pic #2 Olive Grove with Two Olive Pickers; pic #3 Tree Trunks in the Grass. 

 

ROOMS 4 TO 6

Room 4 “Montmajour: A Series” includes drawings of the buildings and nature around the ruined medieval Montmajour Abbey, while Room 5 “Decoration” is about exhibition concepts Van Gogh had developed, and which were intended for use not only at the Yellow House, but also to be transferred to exhibition spaces in Paris and Brussels. The most important aspect here is the grouping of works such as the triptych with La Berceuse in the middle, flanked by the two sunflower paintings. The final room “Variations on a Theme” is about the landscape surrounding Saint-Remy, with the craggy limestone of the Alpilles mountain range and the olive groves. Knowing that the National Gallery hadn’t transferred all their Van Goghs to the current exhibition, Ellie & I decided to briefly stop over at the main collection’s Room 43, where we had a look at one of my favourite paintings of the artist: Two Crabs (1889) – I just love those vibrant colours! There are three further Van Goghs on the walls.

   

Pic #1 Two Crabs; pic #2 Portrait of Adeline Ravoux, the Innkeeper’s Daughter; pic #3 Snowy

Landscape with Arles in the Background. 

 

FINAL THOUGHTS ABOUT VAN GOGH, POETS AND LOVERS, AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY

Over the years Ellie & I have been to a number of Van Gogh exhibitions, not even counting various immersive experiences. Unsurprisingly, this one was by far the most fascinating one, beautifully curated and with so many masterpieces. There were probably other shows where we learned a lot more about the big man, such as The Real Van Gogh at the RA, almost 15 years ago, which featured many of the letters to his brother Theo, or a number of exhibitions exploring how he was influenced by Japanese prints, but Van Gogh, Poets & Lovers, at the National Gallery is pure joy. 5 out of 5 in my book. We are already looking forward to Kiefer/Van Gogh at the RA (Jun-Oct ’25), too.

Looking for more art, culture, and interesting things to do in and near London? Feel welcome to check out my posts about the Henry Moore Studios and Gardens, MoCo, London’s new museum for modern and contemporary art, Frameless, the immersive art experience, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Florence, c.1504 at the RA, White Rabbit Red Rabbit at Soho Place, The Unseen at Riverside Studios, The Other Place, After Antigone, The Lehman Trilogy, and Hansard at the National Theatre, Wish List at the Royal Court, and McGregor’s MADDADDAM with the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House. I’ve also blogged about my recent rowing expedition in the Northwest Passage, how peasant’s food turned posh, Bhutan & Thames trivia, and about that time I jumped out of an airplane.