Loving Vincent: Van Gogh: Lovers and Poets @ The National Gallery, London

Think you know Van Gogh? Think again! Taking us beyond the starry skies and sunflowers to landscapes, portraits, still life and his immense gift for capturing the beauty in the overlooked, the ordinary, the everyday.

A keen reader, this exhibition is inspired by what Van Gogh read and who he knew, those who inspired him. The walls are bedecked with his quotes. And also himself, for he was both romantic and poet, writing literary inspired, chatty letters to his brother Theo. The exhibition also narrowly focuses on his two years in Arles and Saint-Rémy in the south of France, which inspired and honed his art and techniques.

This part, I have to say Van Gogh in London did better — linking him clearly to Dickens, the London life and landscape. Here, even by the themes of the rooms and the groupings of art, it’s fairly hard to work out what the common denominator is. A better theme would have been ‘What Vincent Sees’ — his insights and visions are extraordinary, seeing the spectrum of colours in light. He also very much sees people, particularly those not deemed ‘worthy’ of a portrait.

What the exhibition does brilliantly is to show us new Van Gogh — beyond the heavy hitters and huge sellers to his drawings and less well known works.

And he captures the essence of things — the textures of sunflowers, the shiny smoothness of a vase, the movement of trees against the sky, the rising of a ridge of trees across a landscape, the hard work of a ploughman in a field, the gloriousness of a coffee pot. He can make a chair exceptional; a bedroom remarkable. Partly because he really cares for the people he’s capturing on canvas and partly because he appreciates the things — the chair, the coffee pot, the yellow house. Craving community, homeliness, these emotions pour out into the works he’s creating.

Even the hospital (more of a hospice or care home I think) becomes a source of bitter-sweet inspiration. With dignity and beauty (and yet stunning because they’re all given dignity and personhood), he portrays residents and patients of the hospital looking out over a balcony. They’re looking down on a verdant blooming garden, popping, bursting with flowering bushes and shrubs. The patients are awkwardly at rest, they all look somewhat agitated, posed at slightly wonky, off-kilter angles and not quite as you’d expect, and yet they are cared for, loved people. They are very much people and not diagnoses or horrors to be hidden away, or to be despised, look down upon, brutalised. A powerful painterly lesson in palliative care. Most of all the scene is bathed in warm sunshine — perhaps echoing Van Gogh’s own warmth for people, particularly the disadvantaged and disenfranchised.

And it’s so tragic that he was not appreciated, and his work not appreciated, in his time. I can’t see Van Gogh without seeing Doctor Who!

Nor can I see his coffee pot still life without thinking Rennie Mackintosh or even photography. It’s pristine (and I’m hoping there’s a reflection of the artist in the reflective surface). When Van Gogh shows us irises, we see Japanese influences coming through — also Hokusai’s The Wave in his drawings and paintings of landscapes. He was remarkable — you can feel the movement of the water beneath starry skies; feel the heave of the plough through the earth.

And yet he can also tenderly capture an alert and quick officer, a nursemaid at rest — ready to rock the out of sight cradle as needed; the charmingness of a well-read woman, or an aged gardener with kindness and respect.

With glorious perspective, you follow the path set for you in his landscapes, enjoying green skies, rustling trees, the peace of fig trees and olives groves. Step right back and you’re suddenly in a tangle of poppy fields or vines. Is Van Gogh following in the tradition of romantic landscape painters such as Claude? I’m not sure, but what he was doing was creating something breathtakingly wonderful.

Whilst you can enjoy the layered textures of his works and enjoy hunting for his signature all over the place — do step back. Most of the pictures don’t work until you’re across the room — then they suddenly come sharply into focus and you see all the leading lines he’s creating through the heady daubs of paints.

Maybe Van Gogh drank too much coffee? https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/05/23/how-drinking-too-much-coffee-fuelled-van-goghs-work

@ Images used are the original work of Vincent Van Gogh and the property of the National Gallery and associated exhibitors at the London exhibition Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers. They are not the author’s own and used purely to illustrate the exhibition. December 2024.

Support my writing and future cultural adventures for the price of a cup of coffee at: https://ko-fi.com/susanadventuresinculture