Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers - at the National Gallery

Van Gogh, Starry Night over the Rhone ©Musée d'Orsay, RMN-Grand Palais/Patrice Schmidt

Van Gogh wrote to his brother that: "The painter of the future is a colourist such as there hasn't been before."

The vibrant Van Gogh display of 61 glorious pictures in six rooms perfectly epitomises this dictum. Marking the 200th anniversary of the National Gallery this is the star exhibition of the year, examining the artist's creativity towards the end of his life from 1880 -90 when he went to live in the South of France. It is their first major exhibition of his work.

Fourteen drawings are displayed in Room 4, a rare opportunity to see his dynamic draughtsmanship. Van Gogh was entranced by the landscapes around Arles. His significant 'Landscape at Montmajour Abbey in Arles', 1888, depicts the view from the 12th century abbey ruins which he visited 50 times, despite the climb, mosquitoes and mistral wind.

In Arles, Van Gogh envisaged the public park in front of the Yellow House he rented, as a Poets' Garden, imagining the Italian Renaissance poets Petrarch and Boccaccio strolling there. Some of Van Gogh's most striking paintings and drawings are associated with this notion.

He painted the Yellow House with its bright green shutters in 1888. The intense Provencal light and sunny climate inspired him and he decorated the house with his paintings. It became a studio where artists friends could join him. Oleanders grew prolifically in the park and he associated them with love affairs. His picture of Oleanders in a vase,1888, has two books next to the vase. One is Emile Zola's La Joie de Vivre(The Joy of Living) a favourite of Van Gogh.

Lovers appear in paintings such as 'Starry Night Over The Rhone' under a night sky daubed with an explosion of stars of the Urs Major constellation. It is reminiscent of the recent meteor showers that have adorned our own night skies. The rivulets of light reflecting on the rivers' watery depths are riveting.

One of the many highlights is seeing two versions of his sublime 'Sunflowers' exhibited together for the first time. The original painted in 1888 is in the National Gallery collection, purchased 100 years ago. The version painted in 1889 is loaned from Philadelphia and has more movement, as if the wind is blowing through its petals. They are placed either side of 'La Berceuse', forming the triptych he had envisaged in a sketch sent to his brother Theo. He painted Augustine Roulin several times before this symbolic evocation of motherhood with a rope to rock an unseen cradle.

After Van Gogh's breakdown he was admitted to the Saint-Paul de Mausole hospital in Saint-Rémy, where he imagined the asylum's overgrown garden as a secluded site for lovers.

He painted pictures of the grounds in a euphoric exposition of colour daubing paint in large globules and using a variety of brushstrokes to highlight the array of flora and fauna. In late autumn his own tormented soul and sufferings and those of fellow inmates are revealed in twisted contorted darkened images and gnarled tree roots, 'a dark giant like a proud man brought low…'

He often painted in the garden and was also given an extra room to use as a studio. During his year at the Asylum he painted some 150 paintings.

Originally a 12th century Augustinian Abbey the Saint-Rémy hospital of St Paul de Mausole became an asylum in 1605. When Van Gogh became a voluntary patient it was under the care of the Le Puy Sisters of St Joseph.

They cared for the female patients, and also organised meals and laundry for the men's wing of the asylum. Vincent was suspicious of organised religion and Catholicism and felt uneasy about living amongst women in habits. Apart from the sympathetic Superior, Sister Epiphane, the sisters disliked his art.

His depiction of 'The Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles,1889,' 'chock full of flowers and springtime greenery,' as he wrote to his sister Willmein. 'However three black sad tree trunks cross it like snakes, and in the foreground four large sad, dark box bushes'. A figure wearing a hat, resembling the artist, strides along the cloister lined with giant pot plants beside the garden. Above fellow inmates look down towards the garden and the fishpond, through the large windows, whilst a nun walks along the garden path .

His self portrait of 1889 was painted following a long recovery from mental breakdown and depicts him thin and pale. His piercing blue eyes contrast with his yellow hair and 'whitish' face. The image also appears in an imagined display in a new version of 'The Bedroom' at the Yellow House which he painted soon afterwards. He painted three versions of this.

This is a unique opportunity for art lovers to revel at the poetry in painting on such a scale.

Until 19 January 2025.

For more information visit: www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/van-gogh-poets-and-lovers