As you leave the car park, you enter the Cafe Terrace at Night and you are transported to another world, an artist’s world. You gaze up at Almond Blossoms and across to the Bedroom in Arles.
Then, you will read about the different stages of Van Gogh’s life, artistic and personal, before moving into the extraordinary room that has floor to ceiling images projected 360 degrees onto varying sizes of screens. At once, they will captivate you and you will forget the outside world entirely.
The exhibition takes around 45 mins but you could easily spend over an hour there. We did, just talking and gazing. There are a few bench seats and I recommend moving around to view the works from different angles. There are 3 large floor areas with projections and when you are close you feel like the floor is moving. At one point it showed a time-lapse video of flowers blooming. This particular set of images didn’t fit well for me, beautiful as it was, as all other images were sketches or paintings.
The classical soundtrack is stunning and you will recognise some of the music including Delibes’ exquisite Flower Duet from Lakme. I will be playing this soundtrack regularly to take me back into Van Gogh’s world and mind.
The exhibition is mesmerising, enchanting, peaceful, calming and emotional.
It’s not a black to white exit thankfully – your last stop is the sunflower garden. My friend and I both felt a strange, warped sense of sight with the blurry mirrors not unlike those in a magic mirror house. The light colours of the ceiling were in absolute contrast to the stunning yellow and green of the flowers.
Your senses will be so happy and you will love it.
