https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/ Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

When the world’s most famous artist comes to town you start to regret not sticking in at art class, but, here, Van Gogh travels so learn to paint on holiday.

You might instantly think that the Netherlands would be your first port of call.

And we have found a hotel where you can learn the secrets of Rembrandt.

The very same establishment, the 5* Pulitzer Hotel, which fellow travellers have advised has turned guests into budding Vincents.

Artugal for inner Vincents

Luxury Travel Advisor, well, advises us that the Pulitzer introduced a Van Gogh Art Programme a few years back.

So keep your ear to the ground (soz), and we will too, for whether they’re still churning out Van Goghs.

In the meantime we learn that amateur artists are brushing up on their depths of vision in Portugal.

The Hyatt Regency Lisbon is offering its guests a range of art classes.

And you can choose from an Abstract Oil Painting Workshop from £30 per person or Watercolour Landscape Workshop from £25 per person.

And our favourite, of course, Paint like Van Gogh Workshop from £30 per person.

Prices start at £294 per night based on 2 adults sharing a standard room with a queen bed and River View. Price based on October 2024 stay.

A National obsession

Now art need not be forbidding and I venture that it is the most accessible of pastimes.

Free in many museums with the chance to see the world’s foremost painters’ work up close and personal.

And which other discipline can we say that about?

All of which is why there is such excitement at the Van Gogh exhibition Poets and Lovers at the National Gallery, London.

Which is running from September 14 through to January 19 with tickets on sale now.

And boasting more than 60 of the Dutch geniuses.

With the National Gallery inviting us to get up close to his Starry Night over the Rhône and The Yellow House.

As well as the National’s own Sunflowers and Van Gogh’s Chair, among many others.

All as part of the museum’s 200th birthday celebrations (from £24).

Master the art

Now, if, the National Museum’s exhibition pricks your interest then, of course, you should make a Vincent pilgrimage to Amsterdam.

And immerse yourself in the Van Gogh museum.

And maybe even compare your new-found skills for his genre which you learned out in the Hyatt in Lisbon.

Because, despite what my old art teacher Joe Reilly might have said, back in the day.

There is an artist in all of us.

Van Gogh travels so learn to paint on holiday.

And I give you an original Murty… Mill in Tobago. Priceless!

Wish you were Vermeer… in Edinburgh’s National Gallery Johannes is, Vincent is, The Glasgow Boys are and the New England masters.

Those who have come to see me to share the state of their five states and one Commonwealth.

All of which I have come to love since I first started visiting there 36 years ago.

Only the New Englanders’ flight is running late and our morning meeting has been pushed back to the afternoon.

Giving me longer than I’ve ever had to saunter around The National Gallery.

Despite having lived in Edinburgh’s seaside resort of Portobello for ten years.

And now four years back in Scotland, and staying in North Berwick just down the east coast.

Art of the matter

Hit the Jackpot: Jack Yeats in the National Gallery in Dublin

Filling in a couple of hours in the art gallery before travel meetings became a regular pastime in my 13 years in Ireland.

When I would lose myself in the Da Vinci sketches, the Impressionists and the Jack Yeatses in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.

For Dublin 2010s, now read Edinburgh 2020s when two and a half hours is still not enough…

To truly appreciate the Renaissance, the Impressionists, all of Scottish art and the Flemish and Dutch masters.

Virginal territory

Centrepiece when I visit is the Vermeer on loan from the National Gallery in London, Lady Seated at a Virginal (there’s a Vermeer exhibition in Dublin too btw).

One of only 34 canvases the Delft artist painted, your eye is immediately drawn to Lady at Virginal.

For her similarity to her more famous compatriot Girl With A Pearl Earring.

And for those already asking the question, I did the same of our guide, a virginal is not a comment on the model’s virtue.

But a rectangular spinet, or harpsichord, with the strings parallel to the keyboard which were popular in Vermeer’s day.

Playing to the Gallery

Now while the rest of the world seems still seduced by the Mona Lisa smile in the Louvre.

I would be more taken by Johannes’ women and would advise anyone either living in Edinburgh and its environs.

To take an hour or two out of your day, or tour, to visit Lady at her virginal, and Cupid with whom she shares the frame.

Spend time with Rembrandt or go a wandering into Van Gogh’s or Monet’s fields and Canaletto’s Venice.

And scoot along to the minister skating on the ice or maybe learn about The Glasgow Girls.

Yes, women painted (and still do) and at last galleries like Edinburgh and further afield have come to recognise that.

Dreaming of New England

Sound as a Mound: The Scottish Cafe & Restaurant

As for the New England masters I picked up that Bostonian JS Copley had a part to play in bringing the glory of the military hero Lord Duncan to our attention.

And that he was a compatriot of Benjamin West whose painting Alexander III of Scotland Rescued from the Fury of a Stag by the Intrepidity of Colin FitzgeraldI also scanned on my trip around the gallery.

As for the other New England masters, well I wish they were Vermeer… in Edinburgh’s National Gallery.

But they were half a mile away from here, here being The Contini Scottish Cafe & Restaurant at the National Gallery.

No, not to be seen in this prime spot on The Mound, next to Princes Street, near the Sir Walter Scott Monument, above the Princes Gardens and on the doorstep of Edinburgh Castle.

But rather in the parallel thoroughfare of George Street in Contini’s sister restaurant.

I did break bread with Visit New England, Connecticut and Newport, Rhode Island.

And even in the short time I still had left learned how New England is still leading the way in the worlds of sport, culinary and the revolution.

All of which, of course, I’ll share with you.

MEET YOU ON THE ROAD