Sunflowers, Self Portraits and Possibly The Best Known Artist In The World! (Van Gogh Museum)

Member Name: chrisandmark

Product:	Van Gogh Museum
Date:	04/05/06 (441 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful artworks and interesting displays

Disadvantages: Some minor queues and the cost of the Exhibition Wing entrance

A must see while in Amsterdam is the Van Gogh Museum, the largest collection of Van Gogh paintings in the world.

I decided to visit after sampling some of the culture of the city in the form of the Anne Frank House (another must see) and decided to look at something else worthwhile – and something which doesn’t contain a cannabis leaf in the logo!

The museum, as the name suggests, is a remembrance of the world famous artist’s life and works. Vincent Van Gogh was born in the Netherlands in 1853; something of a prodigy with languages as a child, when he showed an interest in art he surprised many who knew him. He has 864 paintings and well over 1000 drawings which have survived through the years, indicating that he painted many more. Van Gogh suffered extreme bouts of depression through his life which saw him living as a pauper for a time while studying a particularly harsh stem of Christianity. The depression led to his suicide in 1890, when he shot himself in the chest and died in the arms of his beloved brother, Theo.

It is from Theo’s son that the museum got a large portion of its collection. When Vincent died he left his works to his brother, and they were eventually passed down to his son. They were given to the Vincent Van Gogh Foundation and transferred to the museum 1973.

The museum consists of two buildings; the main one which houses the permanent collection and the Exhibition Wing for changing displays throughout the year.

The main building is definitely the most interesting of the two with, in my opinion, the ground floor of this building being the most interesting of the entire museum. This is where artefacts and an extensive collection of letters from Van Gogh are displayed; he was a prolific letter writer and the collection was donated to the museum by Theo’s descendants. Despite the letters not being written in English, there are good translation cards next to some of (what I believe) are the more interesting correspondence. What’s striking about these letters is the way I could get a feel for the painters state of mind by his writing, his wonderfully flamboyant handwriting would morph into erratic scrawling at times when his depression was particularly bad.

Other items on display are brushes and partially finished canvases, with self portraits in various poses dotted around the walls. Personally I prefer his landscapes and still life paintings, but this is Van bloomin’ Gogh so who am I to criticise his people pictures???

The first floor is used to display the majority of his paintings and drawings, entering this area is (unsurprisingly) just like walking into an art gallery with the only difference being that as you approach the paintings you’re looking at Van Gogh’s work rather than an unknown artist. The paintings are fantastically laid out with plenty of space between each one, allowing visitors to linger in front of works which particularly catch your eye without worrying about other people not being able to see. There is sometimes a queue of people waiting to look at the more famous paintings, but because there is so much more to look at on the walls it doesn’t feel like you’re waiting.

The paintings are grouped into five rough categories, with each section dedicated to a particular period in Van Gogh’s artistic life. My personal favourite period, as displayed here in the museum, is the Arles collection. This contains a copy of his ultra famous Sunflowers painting, a little known fact is that Van Gogh painted many copies of his original (and expensive!) painting and it’s one such copy which now belongs to the museum. Another lovely piece in this collection is the Field with Flowers at Arles; this is a stunning painting which captures his style of painting perfectly.

As you walk through the different galleries, you can start to spot a pattern in his painting which I imagine would coincide with his periods of depression. His early work is extremely dark, while in the Paris collection he’s using bold and bright colours again (not to mention creating an awful lot of self portraits) but by the time you get to the Saint-Remy display its back to dark, dismal paintings. Obviously, every single piece of art contained in the museum is fantastic but it’s sad in a way that I can literally watch his mental health deteriorating through his work.

At the time of my visit, the Exhibition Wing was hosting a display of Rembrandt and Caravaggio to acknowledge the parallels between the two artists’ work. After queuing for nearly half an hour I realised that it would cost me an additional 25 euros, and after waiting for such a long time I decided to pay it and see what I’d have been missing otherwise.

The collection of paintings and related documents are amazing, although I’m by no means an art buff so this exhibition was kind of wasted on me. I enjoyed seeing the work of such a famous artist, but the Rembrandt works didn’t have the same instant appeal for me as the Van Gogh collection. I wouldn’t visit this section of the museum again, but for people who are interested in art such as this I’d definitely recommend the display.

Both the museum and exhibition wing are fully accessible to wheelchairs users, being ramped instead of stepped and having lift access to the upper floors. Kids. Well, that’s a hard one. My children didn’t come on our trip and to be honest I don’t think they’d have enjoyed the museum, although generally more cultured children from the continent were visiting at the same time as us and they were well behaved and seemed genuinely interested in the various displays and artefacts.

There's a pleasant restaurant located in the main building, which I thought was hugely overpriced. It basically serves snacks (soup, sandwiches, salad etc) and coffee with an average bill for two people being around 20 euros. The restaurant is a nice place to sit and relax after walking around the galleries, and it was lovely to sit and chat about the works we'd just seen.

To visit the permanent collection at the Van Gogh Museum costs a bargain 10 euros, and for this you’re going to see the work of a genius and have memories of a lovely few hours in cultural Amsterdam. The museum is open daily from 10am to 6pm, and has a late closing night on Fridays of 10pm.

The Van Gogh Museum
P.O. Box 75366
1070 AJ Amsterdam
T +31 (0)20 570 5200

Summary: Cultured? Me? Looks like it!