joseph scissorhands: Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers

Vincent van Gogh - The Olive Trees, 1889

"The painter of the future is a colourist such as there hasn't been before."

- Vincent van Gogh.

Having sold out not once, but twice, I counted myself extremely lucky to have secured a ticket for this exhibition. It is the first exhibition devoted to Van Gogh staged by the National Gallery as part of the celebration of their bicentenary year. The exhibition recounts through an extraordinary series of paintings the period of the last two years of the life of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) spent in both Arles and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in the South of France. It is a very emotive show in that it was a phase in which Van Gogh endured a disturbing series of mental health episodes and was forced to admit himself to hospitals for treatment. The effect of these episodes would culminate in the artist taking his own life. The curators appear wary of focusing on the sensational aspects of the artists' life, and intentionally play this down focusing instead on his thoughts through a series of letters to his brother Theo, and the artist as a colourist. They have oddly subtitled the exhibition Poets and Lovers, which is rather tenuous as it refers to just two paintings displayed in the first room of the show. One painting is a portrait of “the lover”, lieutenant Paul Milliet, the Zouave regiment soldier who Van Gogh saw as a ladies’ man. The second portrait is of “the poet”, based on his Belgian artist friend Eugène Boch, who the artist perceived as a sensitive soul, even though the sitter did not write poetry. Both were friends of the artist. Van Gogh, did not hang out with any poets, and would use a brothel for love partners. All the other rooms (except for a smaller one with drawings from the hill of Montmajour) show works (mainly landscapes), from both his period in Arles (February 1888-May 1889) and at the asylum outside Saint-Rémy-de- Provence (May 1889-May 1890) so do not truly reflect the title of the exhibition. The two years mentioned were a very prolific period for the artist as he produced nearly 200 paintings and a trove of drawings. These works were mostly created during treatment for his mental health crises when he was a patient at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in nearby Saint-Rémy. The curators have done a fantastic job with the selection of paintings. This show contains some very important loans from both private collections and museums in America many of which I have never seen face-to-face, so to speak, or indeed in publications previously. Portrait of a Peasant (1888), a painting of wizened gardener, Patience Escalier, has never before left the Norton Simon collection in Pasadena, California. Another important loan includes a Sunflowers painting from the Philadelphia Museum of Art which has not travelled outside of the United States since it was acquired in 1935. It was interesting to examine it closely against the National's very own Sunflowers painting. Both are part of a triptych of works presented together - two Sunflower paintings, with La Berceuse, (loaned from Boston), a painting of a maternal figure, in between the Sunflowers display. This presentation is significant as Van Gogh suggested having the three paintings shown this way in a letter to his brother, Theo, before he died. Other favourites of those on loan from overseas include, both The Yellow House (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) and a version of The Bedroom (Art Institute of Chicago), affording a view into his home, as well the enchanting Starry Night over the Rhône (Musée d’Orsay). It's hard to separate thoughts of the artist and his suffering when viewing his work. Knowledge of his condition and anguish provokes a natural empathy in the viewer, but we shouldn't just base our opinions of his work solely on this basis. His condition appears to have opened up something in him, as after the last stay in the asylum he produced a series of innovative artworks that were at the height of his powers. We see exaggerated movement and colour in these works as he relaxes his grip on reality and paints with an emotional intensity. One piece - The Olive Trees, 1889, (above), could almost be mistaken for a Picasso with the handling of the mountains and clouds. Quite rightly most critics have given this exhibition five star reviews, hailing it as a once-in-a-lifetime show.