Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers
National Gallery, London

EXHIBITIONS, films, documentaries and numerous articles have perpetuated the view that Vincent Van Gogh (1853-90) was an impassioned but mentally unstable genius. The first of these was the French Symbolist writer Albert Aurier’s 1890 article which praised Van Gogh’s work but called him: “An inspired enemy of all bourgeois sobriety and scruple, a kind of drunken giant … whose mind is constantly erupting … an irresistible, terrifying crazed genius, often sublime, sometimes grotesque, always on the brink of the pathological.” 

In fact Van Gogh was a highly intelligent, widely read and profoundly self-aware person, who was knowledgable about art and literature and who only suffered intermittent bouts of mental illness during the last two years of his life, during which he took care not to paint.  

Born in 1853 in the Netherlands to Theodorus Van Gogh, a pastor, and his wife Anna Cornelia Carbentus, Van Gogh worked for the art dealers Goupil & Cie from 1869 to 1875 where he acquired a wide knowledge of original works of art which he expanded through reading and visiting exhibitions for the rest of his life. 

Profoundly religious yet critical of the established Christian church, he became a lay preacher in 1876 in London, and in 1878 in Belgium’s coalmining area. However, his  interpersonal skills were not great, his Dutch accent in French and English did not help and he soon realised that he could better communicate his concern to help fellow beings through art. 

He took some lessons in Brussels, The Hague and Paris from 1880-86 but mostly developed his work by himself and through studying original paintings in museums and art dealerships. Like so many 19th century artists he soon went to Paris (February ’86-88) where his brother Theo worked for an art dealer and which was the centre of modern art. There he haunted its well-stocked museums and art dealers’ exhibitions. 

Born into the Netherlands’ cold climate and often gloomy skies, Van Gogh moved south and settled in Arles where he was fired by southern France’s intense, steady blue skies and blinding light. Life was also cheaper there and he rented a house which he planned to turn into a “studio of the south” to be shared with artist friends. When Paul Gauguin showed up he proceeded to patronise Van Gogh by acting the avant-garde grandee. However, when the socialist Paul Signac visited they spent all day discussing painting and socialism.

Although Van Gogh never joined a political group, the content of his life’s work and over 650 letters about art, literature and life show a profound empathy with workers and peasants, coupled with a disgust at social injustice. In 1885 he wrote to Theo: “Nothing seems simpler than painting peasants or rag pickers and other workers, but — there are no subjects in painting as difficult as those everyday figures!”

Van Gogh began working as an artist in 1880, yet most of his best-known works date from 1888 to 1890 and the National Gallery exhibition focuses on these highly prolific years. 

Sometimes drawing from life, but mostly working in the studio from memory of subjects recently seen, he used colour, line and touch to depict but also to express the essence of his subjects. Every mark matters, however seemingly humble the subject.

He wrote: “In a painting I’d like to say something consoling, like a piece of music. I’d like to paint men or women with that je ne sais quoi of the eternal, of which the halo used to be the symbol and which we try to achieve through the radiance itself, though the vibrancy of our colourations.” 

Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of a Peasant (Patience Escalier), 1888. Credit: Norton Simon Art Foundation/CC

Without the means to pay models he occasionally found someone to sit for him. In Portrait of a Peasant (Patience Escalier) of 1888 the elderly gardener faces the viewer, his intense gaze expressing the complexities of a long life’s experience; yet the vivid cobalt blue background is painted with such active criss-crossed brush strokes that they suggest a life well lived. In The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at Saint-Remy) of 1889, the sinuous outlines of tree trunks and branches suggest growth rather than immobility. Characteristically, Van Gogh added figures; indeed few landscapes are devoid of a human presence, be it people or their homes. 

Van Gogh was also a prolific writer of letters, which in themselves make a valuable contribution to late 19th century art. He demonstrates such love of nature, of humanity and of culture, that it is tragic his professional status and personal life were largely unfulfilled. Yet he knew that his was an art of the future. How right he was. 

I have been looking and writing about art for several decades, but few artists have such a warm place in my heart as has Van Gogh. A true saint of a man. Tribute is also due to Theo for supporting Vincent emotionally and financially from 1880 onwards, despite only earning a modest living. That Vincent killed himself in July 1890 was almost certainly partly due to his no longer wanting to be a burden once Theo’s first child was born. 

The National Gallery has the international status and budgets to produce an important exhibition drawn from private collections and worldwide museums, so we are treated to some paintings rarely or never seen in London. 

Do try to go, you will leave feeling moved and elated. 

Runs until January 19 2025. For more information see: nationalgallery.org.uk.