V an Gogh: Poets and Lovers at the National Gallery is yet another insipid exercise in sentimental hagiography. This exhibition, which purports to explore the artist’s “intimate” relationships through a series
of portraits and floral studies, is in fact a shallow indulgence in romanticism — the worst kind, pandering to the emotions of the casual visitor while glossing over the profundities of Van Gogh’s art. It seems the National Gallery has decided to package him as the patron saint of unrequited love, his works reduced to greeting cards for the emotionally overwrought.
The title itself — Poets and Lovers — reeks of mawkishness. One expects poetry in Van Gogh’s brushwork, but what does “lovers” add, save to titillate those who prefer their artists to suffer romantically as well as mentally? This framing does a disservice not only to the works on display but to Van Gogh himself. The artist’s portraits — L’Arlésienne and Joseph Roulin among them — are not declarations of sentimental attachment, but rather exercises in psychological and emotional depth, framed with a startling precision of colour and line. But in this exhibition, their complexity is reduced to footnotes in a trite narrative of affection, with Van Gogh cast as a lovelorn figure pining for recognition.
Of course, we are presented with the inevitable floral still lifes — Irises and Roses, works of dazzling chromatic intensity. Here, too, the exhibition insists on an unnecessary emotional overlay, as though Van Gogh’s use of colour needs to be explained away as an expression of yearning or loneliness. How tiresome. The accompanying texts are riddled with florid prose, invoking the usual clichés about Van Gogh’s “inner turmoil”.
Myth of the doomed lover
This story is from the September 26, 2024 edition of The London Standard.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the September 26, 2024 edition of The London Standard.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Kylie Minogue loves the bar at Louie, startling Beefeaters and snooping in The Conran Shop
Currently it’s largely suitcase-based as I’ve been doing so much travel for work, but Melbourne, Australia, is home.
Are Spurs willing to invest what it takes to win trophies?
Criticism of the manager for the club's struggles misses the point-whatever he says, he's not been given a squad ready to push for the biggest honours
Crowning glory awaits Britain's golden girl
Odds-on favourite to win BBC Sports Personality, Keely Hodgkinson never doubted she was ready to conquer the world
Residents at war over £10 billion 'Shanghai-style' Earl's Court plan
Controversial proposals are causing a huge furore in west London
The secrets of selling the capital's £40m homes
Armed security, NDAs, a gold temple...inside the world of ultra high-end property deals
Jenny Packham on Amsterdam why is truly magical at Christmas time
The designer gets lost in the cobbled streets and is entranced by the city’s twinkling lights and unique spirit
Alfies Antique Market
Here is a place to blindly lose oneself in a labyrinth of staircases and thresholds.
Decline and fall: what comes after peak wellness?
The social elite are obsessed with devices that track their health but the backlash is building
The newest AI can arrange your holiday- but will it be a strictly woke one?
A lightning-quick artificial megabrain with an appetite for social justice? WILLIAM HOSIE has a chat with Claude Al
'Fame just isn't healthy
Mercury Prize-winning band English Teacher on the pressure of success, trying not to burn out and the challenges black women face in indie music