For so many of us Vincent Van Gogh was an artist who painted bold colourful paintings, was a bit mad, and cut off his ear for his art. It is a pity that the hype surrounding the Dutch painter has been so out of balance for all these years.

Now the The Royal Academy of Arts’s exhibition The Real Van Gogh the Artist and his Letter gives us insight into the man and reveals him to be sensitive, striving for excellence, dedicated to his art and intellectual. Through the 35 original letters, mainly written to his art-dealer brother Theo, 65 paintings and 30 drawings, we develop a true understanding of Van Gogh.

The exhibition takes us on a journey from his first pen and ink sketches where he was developing his skills as an artist at the age of 27 to the blood stained letter found on his chest when he shot himself in a wheat field in 1890. The fragile letters, composed in his scrawly writing, are on display in glass cases adjacent to the paintings. In them, he pours out his feelings and problems he has had with the ‘study’ and makes little sketches sometimes even depicting the different pigments.

On entering the first room, my immediate impression was how totally devoid of colour the paintings and sketches were. When Van Gogh first set out to become an artist he did pen and ink drawings, charcoal sketches, and his canvases were in dull sombre colours. One wall is dedicated to his famous Potato Eater paintings of peasants working in the fields which Van Gogh said was ’painted in the colours of the soil’.

It isn’t until you get to the third room that the bright, bold colours of cobalt, yellow and green starts to make a real impact. There are many artworks which are familiar – Self Portrait of the Artist at Work, The Yellow House, Fields with Flowers near Arles and Cypresses. Although these paintings are ones we have seen time and time again, reading Van Gogh’s letters alongside them gives you an insight into his struggles.

For me, it was Van Gogh’s Chair hung next to Gauguin’s Chair in the room called Portraits that symbolically revealed the true Van Gogh. The artist was totally in awe of Gauguin and these two paintings show how he felt about himself and his friend. His is a simple, rustic chair with a box of onions in the background whereas Gauguin’s chair is in a dark wood with a pattern carpet in rich colours and a novel on the seat.

The exhibition takes us through his excitement of living in Arles in the yellow house, his enthusiasm for the brilliant colours in the south of France, his day to day activities and his loneliness. It ends with his stay in the asylum with his paintings reflecting his state of mind and his break down.

The exhibition also reveals how intellectual he was - he read Flaubert, Shakespeare, Dickens. Another room is dedicated to his correspondence where you can sit at leisure and read thousands of letters written to his brother and sister Willemien on a computer screen or in Vincent Van Gogh - The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition. I stumbled upon an entry of when he went to Welwyn one day and walked across the city.

When I left the exhibition, I felt I not only had a greater appreciation of Van Gogh’s art but I really did have a true understanding of the man.

Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly until April 18.