National Gallery to Open for 24 Hours
London’s National Gallery’s show, “Poets and Lovers,” is ending next week. The museum offers visitors the opportunity to immerse themselves in the experience to meet the demand, thanks to the unexpected announcement of extended nighttime hours next weekend. The exhibition has already been viewed by over 280,000 visitors, making it the gallery’s third most popular paid show.
The National Gallery will operate overnight on Friday, January 17. Tickets for designated slots running from 9 p.m. until 10 a.m. the following morning were made available for purchase earlier today, and the exhibition is expected to sell out quickly. The exhibition runs until January 19, 2025. A 90-minute film by David Bickerstaff, Exhibition On Screen: Van Gogh Poets And Lovers, will accompany the exhibition.
Why was Poets and Lovers Curated?
Poets and Lovers came into being to commemorate the National Gallery’s 200th anniversary, showcasing highlights from its collection along with over 50 prestigious loans from museums in the Netherlands, France, and the United States. This assists in understanding Vincent van Gogh’s perspective. This new opportunity to view the artworks in the early hours will be a delight for any art enthusiast who has ever wanted to observe van Gogh.
This marks only the second occasion the museum has allowed guests to explore its galleries after dark. The previous instance was more than ten years ago when it trialled a similar event for another popular exhibition, “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan.”
Paintings Featured in Poets and Lovers
The paintings featured in “Poets and Lovers” were primarily created during the last few years of van Gogh’s life while he lived in the southern French town of Arles. There was a heavy influx of van Gogh originals produced between February 1888 and May 1890. Visitors can view Starry Night over the Rhône, Sunflowers and van Gogh’s Chair.
He produced several works, like ‘The Sower,’ which is part of the exhibition, depicting an agricultural worker scattering seeds in the gentle light of dusk, rendering the landscape in semi-fantastical hues of green, orange, and purple. In his letter to his brother Theo, van Gogh noted, “Behind his head, instead of painting the ordinary wall of this shabby apartment, I will paint infinity. Through this simple combination of the bright head against this rich, blue background, I will obtain a mysterious effect, like a star in the depths of an azure sky.”
One of the portraits is of a fellow artist whom van Gogh befriended, Eugène Boch. The inclusion of stars in the background imparts a surreal feel to the artwork.
While residing in Arles, Van Gogh occupied four rooms in a building he referred to as “The Yellow House.” Drawing inspiration from his environment, he depicted his bedroom featuring green shutters and framed pictures on the walls in a flattened style influenced by Japanese prints. Before the canvas deteriorated with time, the walls were originally a shade of purple.
“In flat tints, but coarsely brushed in full impasto, the walls pale lilac, the floor in a broken and faded red, the chairs and the bed chrome yellow, the pillows and the sheet very pale lemon green, the bedspread blood-red, the dressing-table orange, the washbasin blue, the window green,” he said. “I had wished to express utter repose with all these very different tones.”
What do We Know of The EXPERIENCE?
According to Gabriele Finaldi, the National Gallery’s director, who recently received a knighthood for his contributions to art and culture in the king’s New Year Honours List, the experience of visiting the museum at such early hours will provide the public with some understanding of the habits of some of Britain’s most celebrated artists.
He mentioned that visitors would be “walking in the footsteps of artists like Freud, Bacon, and Hockney who spent time here during those hours seeking inspiration from the Gallery’s collection.”
Image Courtesy – National Gallery
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