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Hello and welcome
to the van Gogh Exhibition

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at the National Gallery im London.

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Now, the show is called 
"Poets and lovers"

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and what it contains is 60, yes 60,

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of Van Gogh's most famous pictures,

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some of which are coming 
to London for the very first time

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and the really interesting thing is

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that everything here was painted

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in the two short years that van Gogh
spent in the south of France.

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He arrived in February 1888,

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he left after all kinds of tragedies
in May 1890

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but in those two short years 
the masterpieces poured out of him.

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Leading the way is his view
of the yellow house in Arles,

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so this was the home
that he made for himself

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and in this tiny little house

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he made most of these paintings
that you see around us.

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It's interesting picture 
for all kinds of reasons.

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This wonderful golden color is one thing

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but if you see that at the back
that's the railway line

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that's probably the train 
that he arrived in Arles,

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on the train from Paris.

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This Café here 
that's the Night Café in Arles,

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that's where he used to go 
and get drunk and play billiards

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so that was right next door to the house

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and interestingly you see these lumps
in the middle of the road.

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You know, what those are.

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They're actually road works,

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because when Vincent moved
into this house

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he asked for the gas to be connected up 
to the house

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so that he could work at night.

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Gas lighting had just been
introduced in Arles.

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Vincent made sure that the yellow house 
was connected to it.

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Now, the world which 
van Gogh lived in Arles

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was tiny, really tiny,

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To help you visualize it,

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I've set up this detailed map
of the region.

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So, this here that's the big yellow house
he lived in on the corner,

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and behind it, the railway station
with the train coming in.

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That's just there.

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Next door to it the Night Café,

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the scene of many drinking
adventures by Vincent.

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So, when he went out the front door,

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just to the right 50 yards up the road,

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that big view of the Starry Nght
that's just here

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and in front of him was the big park,
the Poet's Garden

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where all the lovers
would stray and meet.

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And then, just past the park,
just up the road there,

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that's the brothel where he used
to go with Gauguin

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for what they called 
their "hygienic visits".

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Now, all this the whole 
of van Gogh's world,

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pretty much everything
you see in this show,

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all of that is just a few hundred yards

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of just a tiny bit of the world

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that produced massive amounts
of great art.

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His bedroom in Arles.

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This isn't actually the first painting 
he did of that.

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This is something he did later,

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he did a kind of recreation of it.

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Once he'd had his breakdown
and things went wrong,

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he painted it again.

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Now I can't look at this picture
without always making a B-line

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for this washstand here.

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So, in the morning
Vincent would wash and shave.

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This must be
where he kept his razor,

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the razor with which notoriously
he would later hack away at his own ear.

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Why did van Gogh choose Arles 
as his south of France destination?

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It's always puzzled me, I mean,

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he could have gone anywhere
in the south of France,

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to some very glamorous places,

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but he chose Arles
which at the time was an industrial city.

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It had a port full of cold ships,
dark smoky

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and the only thing Arles was famous for
at the time

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was the beauty of its women.

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The Arlesiennes, as they were called

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were supposed to be the most beautiful
women in France

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and my suspicion, my theory

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is that it was this that attracted 
Vincent most-

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He was a man desperately
searching for love

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and he thought that if he came to Arles

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amongst all these famously
beautiful arlesiennes

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would find the partner he was seeking

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and all through the show

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there's so much whispering 
of love going on.

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Little couples under the trees,

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little couples walking by the river,

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little couples in the park.

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And that didn't ever happe
to Vincent in real life

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but it could happen in his art.

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I love these Vincent's views 
of the olive trees near San Rémy

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where the asylum was.

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There's something about olive trees,

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their gnarled shape,

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the way that they twist and struggle
in the dry earth.

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That touched a cord with him

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and for me, their kind of self-portraits,

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each olive tree representing
his own struggle.

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I've been looking at van Gogh
most of my adult life

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and I thought I'd seen a lot

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but I hadn't seen that,

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I hadn't seen that,
I didn't see that.

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There's a lot here
that no one has seen before.

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So, there's all kinds of reasons 
to come to this exhibition

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but one of them 
is that you'll see a van Gogh

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that perhaps will be
a bit unfamiliar to you.