The Van Gogh Museum

In 2000, on Sam's first trip to Amsterdam, neither one of us had any interest in Vincent van Gogh. Not only that, we only had about 45 minutes to visit the museum that day and chose, instead, to enjoy the sunshine and vast green space between the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh's.

But tastes change--or mature. We are now more interested in Vincent--I've been studying and reading about him for the past several years--and we were both looking forward to discovering and exploring the place. So we used our free Thursday afternoon to visit his remarkable museum, which features works by the troubled Dutch artist--works of art which seem to mirror his life.

Vincent, who killed himself in 1890 at age 37, is best known for sunny, Impressionist canvases that vibrate and pulse with vitality. The museum's 200 paintings--which offer a virtual stroll through his work and life--were owned by Theo, Vincent's younger, art-dealer brother. Paintings were divided into five periods of his life--the Netherlands, Paris, Arles, St. Remy, and Auvers-sur-Oise.

The mix of his creative genius and his tumultuous life makes the museum as much a walk with Vincent as with his art. In fact, the paintings, arranged chronologically, leave a series of suicide notes and begin with some dark, gray canvases showing the hard, plain existence of the Dutch people--simple buildings, barren trees, and overcast skies--a world where it seems spring will never arrive.

"The Potato Eaters," painted in 1885, reflects a dark, cramped room lit only by a dim light and poor workers helping themselves to a steaming plate of potatoes. Van Gogh gave their heads "something like the color of a really dusty potato, unpeeled, of course." In line with the theory he was studying at the time, he obtained all his colors by mixing the primary colors red, yellow, and blue. The artist produced a large number of preparatory studies in the cottage of the peasant family that we see eating their meal here, but he made the final painting in his studio.

We really liked the displays and the very interactive audioguide. In fact, it was a SmartPhone-like device and while standing in front of a painting, we'd sometimes receive an email from Vincent. And if I could figure out how to open it....it was intriguing to read the information he provided about a painting or technique. Like the email about the "Courtesan" he painted in 1887.

In Van Gogh's day, many artists were keen collectors of Japanese prints, which presented them with a fresh way of looking at composition, the use of color, and perspective. In fact, Vincent and Theo built up a collection of their own Japanese prints. The "Courtesan" painting was based on a cover illustration for a magazine on Japanese art, using other models for the surrounding landscape which also displayed water plants, a frog, and a crane.

"The Bedroom" was painted in 1888--his actual bedroom in his "yellow house" in Arles--and this was the first version. The second version is in Chicago's Art Institute and the third, in Paris's Musee d'Orsay.

I really liked the openness of the museum, the bright wall colors--the same colors Vincent used--how the paintings were displayed, the general feel of the museum. I think Sam enjoyed it, as well.