Of 61 works in the exhibition, more than one-third are on loan from private collections or from galleries and museums requiring major journeys to visit. Most of these are in the USA, with others in Canada, Mexico and Japan. A few are from galleries in southern Europe, while others are in France, Switzerland, Germany and of course the Netherlands. Just six can usually be seen in London, nonetheless requiring visits to the British Museum, Courtauld, National, and Tate: a busy day for anyone.
Van Gogh’s Chair, Sunflowers, and A Wheatfield with Cypress Trees are all in the National Gallery, numbered 21, 42 and 49 respectively in this exhibition. The first appears in Room 3 of the six. A comfort is that the 1888 version of Sunflowers seemed a better painting than its counterpart in Philadelphia (44, painted in 1889). These are placed on either side of La Berceause, as Van Gogh proposed, in a triptych.
The Lovers of the exhibition’s title are clear enough: the first being the envy of Van Gogh for his success with women. He occupies one wall with the Poet, Eugene Boch (actually a painter) on another, in Room 1. They are separated by The Poet’s Garden (imagined from the public garden in Arles). Van Gogh peopled this with supposed lovers. As eclectic as Van Gogh’s fanatsies, these are from the Kroller-Muller Museum (Nethelands), a private collection and the Musee d’Orsay, Paris.
Room 2 has poetic interpretations of the Garden, in most cases the garden at St Remy. It has imaginary female figures (women were not allowed in the area Van Gogh depicted). The greatest interest of these works comes from the attention to texture on tree trunks, showing the influence of Japenese prints on Van Gogh.
Starry Night over the Rhone appears in Room 3. This is comparable to the starry night in the streets of Arles, not in the exhibition. It again features imaginary lovers, who seem to be standing on a wharf in imminent danger of flooding. Whatever the “reality” the whole is a marvel of light effects and blue-yellow contrasts – one of the glories of the show.
Texture reappears in drawings, at which Van Gogh excelled. Several appear in the work he did at Montmajour, near Arles. The rocks that feature in the Provencal landscape to make arduous the work of local farmers provide dramatic forms for th painter. He makes effects like rock forms in the Cypresses and Olive Groves in the section entitled Variations on a Theme, which concludes the exhibition.
When these works return to their various homes we will have valued memories of them, not to mention the incentive to visit Paris, Amsterdam and Otterlo for an aftertaste. The exhibition is also to be seen in cinemas during November. However viewed, it is a “must”.
