Vincent van Gogh · London · 1873 -1876
Van Gogh in London: the city that teaches him to see
Before sunflowers, cypresses and starry nights, there is a young gallery employee who walks through London, reads Keats, frequents museums and stops in front of the engravings in the illustrated press.
Van Gogh does not paint yet. However, his stay in London formed a library of images and texts that he would later reactivate: English landscapes, black and white social scenes, Dickens' novels and observation of the big city.
Start with a beneficial correction
London does not reveal a painter: it equips a look
When Vincent van Gogh arrived in London in May 1873, he was twenty years old and had worked since 1869 for Goupil & Cie, an art dealer and publisher of reproductions. He joined the Southampton Street branch, near the Strand. His daily life was commercial: cataloging, selling, handling engravings and photographs of works, responding to an international clientele.
He does not yet have the profession of designer or painter. His decision to become an artist only became clearer in 1880. Looking in the London of 1873 for the blue of Arles or the touches of Saint-Rémy would therefore lead to a false continuity. The city acts in more depth: it teaches him to look regularly, to compare images and to associate art, literature and modern life.
The letters show a young man at first happy, curious about the parks, museums and countryside of south London. On August 7, 1873, he explained that he was in no hurry to visit Crystal Palace, the Tower or the Tussaud Museum: museums and green spaces attracted him more. Three days earlier, he signed the register for the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
London also offers him a reproducible visual culture. A few steps from Goupil are printers, booksellers and showcases of major weeklies. Years later, Van Gogh will remember going every week to see the publications of The Graphic and from theIllustrated London News. These images of workers, prisons, hospices and streets become a lasting reserve.
Three stays, several lives
From the enthusiastic employee to the aspiring preacher
The phrase "Van Gogh in London" covers different moments. Distinguishing them prevents us from condensing three unstable years into a single legend.
Goupil
Transferred from The Hague, Van Gogh joined the London branch at the age of twenty.
Dulwich
He visits the Picture Gallery and leaves his signature in the register.
Hackford Road
He moved in with Ursula Loyer and her daughter Eugenie, south London.
With Anna
His sister joins him; both walk a lot and look for a place for her.
Paris
Work at Goupil continued in Paris before the break with the art trade.
Return English
He taught at Ramsgate then Isleworth and moved towards preaching.
17 Southampton Street
At Goupil, art arrives in the form of a network
Learn through the circulation of works
Goupil is not just a painting store. The company has branches in several capitals and distributes paintings, prints, photographs and reproductions. Van Gogh therefore works to the point where the work becomes a transportable image. He sees artists, subjects and formats passing well beyond what a single museum could present.
In a letter from March 1874, he advised Theo to read about art as much as possible and learn about paintings. The council summarizes its own method. Van Gogh does not separate the gaze from the documentation: he compares what he sees with magazines, catalogs and professional conversations.
However, this commercial training does not mechanically announce his vocation. His relationship with the profession deteriorated, particularly as his religious zeal intensified. He tolerated the conventions of sales less and less and ended up leaving Goupil in 1876. But the habits adopted among reproductions survived the merchant.
Rooms before monuments
Dulwich, the National Gallery and the School of Face-to-Face
Watch without producing yet
The visit to Dulwich on August 4, 1873 is particularly solid on a documentary level: Van Gogh recounts it and his signature appears in the register. There he discovered an old collection in a museum open to the public, far from the sole logic of sale. His letter also emphasizes the walk, the surrounding countryside and the villages inhabited by those who work in London.
His journeys thus connect the interior of museums and observation of the landscape. These are not yet study sessions in the academic sense, but a discipline of attendance. He looks at paintings, then trees, streets and lights. In a letter from July 1874, he wrote that everything is beautiful if one has a fair look - and that beauty can be found everywhere.
We must remain cautious when naming specific influences. Van Gogh admires British art and cites, at different times, Constable, Turner or Millais. But documented admiration does not allow us to attribute each subsequent sky to London. The safest relationship is methodological: visiting, memorizing, comparing, then reviewing the images through reproduction.
Keats, Dickens, Eliot
Literature teaches him to see lives in the landscape
Reading is not leaving the visible
In August 1873, Van Gogh copied long passages from John Keats in a letter. He specifies that the poet is appreciated by English painters and notably transcribes verses devoted to autumn. For him, literature and painting are not two competing worlds: a text can refine the perception of a season, a light or a figure.
Dickens and George Eliot play an equally enduring role. Their novels make visible the existences taken in the industrial city: poverty, work, solitude, dignity and family life. Van Gogh retained this sensitivity when he drew the inhabitants of the working-class neighborhoods of The Hague and the peasants of Nuenen.
It would be too simple to say that a novel directly produces a painting. Rather, literature provides a moral disposition of the gaze. She invites Van Gogh not to treat the humble as picturesque and to seek a truth of posture, fatigue or mutual aid. London thus becomes an experience that is both aesthetic and social.
Black and white before color
Six forces of the illustrated press who will return to his art
English engravings constitute the most concrete connection between the stay and the future painter. Van Gogh collects them, classifies them, exchanges them and sometimes transposes their subjects.
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The social subject
Prison, hospice and work enter art without mythological heroes.
The crowd
Repeated figures become a collective rhythm rather than a series of portraits.
The point of view
The diving and high walls create an immediately readable feeling of confinement.
The silhouette
A body is understood by its curve, its clothing and its direction above all detail.
The contrast
The engraved image teaches to construct strong values even before color.
The transposition
In 1890, Van Gogh transformed Doré's engraving into a painting without erasing its architecture.
Influence, memory or rapprochement?
What London explains - and what it doesn't explain
A responsible story distinguishes between documented connections, plausible continuities and simple visual comparisons.
| Element | What the sources establish | What to avoid | Trace in future work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goupil & Cie | Van Gogh works in contact with paintings, engravings and reproductions. | Present the business as a painting academy. | Vast knowledge of images and their circulation. |
| Museums | He visits Dulwich and favors museums and parks over attractions. | List works seen without proof. | Habit of confronting the original and reproduction. |
| English literature | His letters quote Keats; Dickens and Eliot remain major references. | Transform a specific novel into a unique “source” of a painting. | Attention to the seasons, to workers and to the excluded. |
| Illustrated press | He frequented the windows and then massively collected English engravings. | Reduce these images to simple documents. | Frames, silhouettes and social scenes reused by drawing and painting. |
| British painting | He admires several English artists and knows their works through various channels. | Making Turner the direct origin of all its yellows and blues. | A possible dialogue about landscape, atmosphere and intensity. |
| Posthumous London | The National Gallery acquires the Sunflowers in 1924. | Confuse current presence of works and stay of 1873. | The city becomes a major center of its global reception. |
A dialogue in images
From Britain watched to artist exhibited in London
These connections do not make up an automatic chain of influences. They provide benchmarks to see how English landscape, social engraving, season and London posterity intersect around Van Gogh.
Create a wall around London
Bring atmosphere, engraving and color into dialogue
The London theme allows for a more narrative hook than a selection centered on a single period. Coherence comes from values, formats and transitions, not from an identical palette.
Black and white
Place it Prisoners' circle as a dark anchor. Its vertical architecture gives weight to a light wall.
English landscape
Constable brings earthy greens; Turner introduces more diffused light and open horizons.
Van Gogh Shard
The Sunflowers work as a warm accent. Avoid repeating their yellow in all accessories.
Readable story
A discrete legend or chronological order helps distinguish influence, comparison and posthumous reception.
A domestic gallery in three stages
Start with a British landscape, continue with Van Gogh's work after Doré, then finish with the Sunflowers entered the National Gallery. The gaze thus shifts from what he was able to learn to what London then devoted.
A warm gray, stone or smoky blue wall supports these gaps. Keep frames simple: brown or black wood for dark scenes, very discreet patinated gold for Turner, light oak for Van Gogh yellows.
Spacing
Regular intervals are enough; formats and eras already create contrast.
Light
Soft side lighting preserves blacks and avoids crushing atmospheric nuances.
Format
Choose one dominant work and two secondary formats rather than four competing sizes.
Frame
Repeat a finish or molding width to unify different artists.
Selection verified in the store
Four works to tell the story of London without shortcuts
The four files are active. They connect reinterpreted English engraving, two British masters and Van Gogh's masterpiece now kept in London.
The Prisoners' Round
A London engraving transformed into a painting in Saint-Rémy.
Sunflowers
The painting acquired in 1924 has become an icon of the London museum.
The Hay Cart
Rural work is part of a mobile and observed atmosphere.
The Last Journey of the Bold
A British meditation on light and modernity.
Vincent van Gogh
Explore all of the painter's periods and subjects.
British paintingJMW Turner
Explore the seascapes, landscapes and searches for light.
English landscapeJohn Constable
Find countryside, clouds and rivers observed in England.
MovementRomanticism
Compare European landscapes and stories from the 19th century.
MovementPost-Impressionism
See what Van Gogh will develop well after his stay in English.
LandmarksFamous paintings
Create a route among the major works of museums.
Institutional sources
Six benchmarks to separate facts from legend
The route has been verified from scientific correspondence, the Van Gogh Museum, the Van Gogh House and the National Gallery.
Museums, parks, Keats, visit to Dulwich and signing of the register in August 1873.
Van Gogh Letters - Letter 27Walks with Anna and reflection on beauty accessible to the right eye.
Van Gogh Letters - Letter 76Return to England, journey to Ramsgate and precise description of the landscape.
Van Gogh Museum - taste for engravingProximity to London printers and the growth of his passion for the illustrated press.
Van Gogh House - Vincent and AnnaGoupil, first boarding houses and installation at 87 Hackford Road.
National Gallery - Les TournesolsAcquisition in 1924 and construction of Van Gogh's presence in London.
Frequently asked questions
Van Gogh in London in eight precise answers
When did Van Gogh live in London?
He arrived in May 1873 to work at Goupil and stayed mainly in London until 1875, with trips. He returned to England in 1876 as an assistant teacher at Ramsgate then Isleworth.
How old was Van Gogh when he arrived?
He was twenty years old. Born March 30, 1853, he was not yet a professional artist and had worked in the art trade for several years.
Where did Van Gogh live in London?
After a first pension whose address remains unknown, he moved in September 1873 to 87 Hackford Road, with Ursula Loyer and her daughter Eugenie. The house now houses Van Gogh House London.
Did Van Gogh paint pictures in London?
No, not in the sense of the career which began in the 1880s. The London stay belongs to his cultural training: work at Goupil, museums, literature, walks and discovery of the illustrated press.
Which museums did Van Gogh visit?
The best documented visit was to the Dulwich Picture Gallery on August 4, 1873, confirmed by his letter and signature in the register. His letters more broadly show his attraction to London museums.
Which English writers did Van Gogh read?
He reads and quotes John Keats, Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Thomas Carlyle in particular. These authors nourish his attention to the seasons, to urban life, to work and to the dignity of modest people.
How do English engravings influence his work?
They give it social subjects, framing, silhouettes and a strong construction of values. His Prisoners' circle from 1890 directly transposes an engraving by Gustave Doré dedicated to Newgate prison.
Why are Sunflowers linked to London?
The National Gallery painting was painted in Arles in 1888, not London. The London Museum acquired it in 1924: this link therefore belongs to Van Gogh's posthumous reception, not to his youthful stay.
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