Our “reason” for going to London was primarily to see the “Poets and Lovers” exhibit at The National Gallery — the first major exhibition of Van Gogh’s work there since 2010 and part of the NG’s 200th Anniversary celebration. Labeled a blockbuster and once in a lifetime, the show features 61 works, including some of the most revered and rarely, if ever, loaned. The curators aimed to show the artist rather than the tortured soul we probably all know about. There was no self-portrait with ear bandage, for example, and a great deal of text placing him in the context of his connections to many other painters of the time. We see the painter as part of a creatively expressive time who was far more deliberate and thoughtful about his work than audience might have realized. (Fair warning, this is an image-heavy post.)
But it’s like that every day, sometimes in passing I find such beautiful things that in the end you have to try to do them anyway. ~Letter to his brother, Theo
Most of the six rooms feature works from his time in Arles (February 1888-May 1889) and at the asylum outside Saint-Rémy-de- Provence (May 1889-May 1890). This was a period of astonishing production for the artist, he completed around 200 paintings in Arles and 150 in Saint-Rémy, which works out at one every two days.
The curators often displayed works according to Van Gogh’s writing about how he envisioned they might be seen by visitors to his Yellow House, or in a gallery. One such is the triptych of two of the Sunflowers (one from the National Gallery and the other from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.) on either side of Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La Berceuse) from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All the three paintings are displayed in imposing frames, hung some distance apart, although Van Gogh wanted them to almost touch, like an altar triptych. He envisaged them presented in simple, slender wooden frames. The two Sunflowers would have been in natural pine and the frame for La Berceuse painted red.
His works display motion; writhing trees, fields like waves, skies filled with air in colors but rarely just blue. A highlight for me was the inclusion of 19 reed and ink drawings, some displayed next to his impasto oils with their thick, dizzying swirls of paint of the same subject. In seeing them displayed thusly, you can get a sense of what he saw.
It was, however, deeply disappointing that the curators chose to overlook the vital part his sister in law, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, played in managing his legacy after Van Gogh’s death. It was she who carefully managed the placement of his works in exhibitions, galleries, and museums all over the world.
While “once in a lifetime” feels a bit over the top, this was a magnificent exhibition that captured an unusual part of Van Gogh’s artistic legacy.
All images in this post are from Wikipedia and licensed under CC 2.0. Cover photo: The National Gallery Photographic Department/Photo: The National Gallery, London
