A visit to the Van Gogh Museum is a highlight of any visit to Amsterdam. As museums go, this is a great museum, even if you a not an art expert or even an art student. Of course the highlights of the museum are the paintings and sketches of the famous artist Vincent Van Gogh. Some of them we have had the pleasure of seeing previously in exhibitions that have traveled to Australia, but most we are seeing for the first time. Wendy loved Seascape at Saintes-Maries. Richard is taken by The Potato Eaters.
What this museum has done particularly well is to place Van Gogh’s work in context. Knowing a little more of his life story and how it flowed from his deep religious background was quite fascinating. The exhibition also placed works of other painters, who had inspired and challenged Van Gogh, side by side with his own work. This museum really explains and reveals the artist, his influences, his moods, his development and sadly his tragic demise and early death at just 37.
We are struck by the irony of visiting a huge museum dedicated to the work of a man, who is today, considered to be one of the great masters of art, but who died convinced that his work was not appreciated and thus felt that his talent was unproven. Van Gogh only painted for a period of 10 years, he had only a handful of lessons and struggled to make a living as an artist. Somehow it seems such an injustice that people all over the world now love and admire the work of a man whose professional self doubt meant that his life was plagued by alcoholism, despair and mental illness. Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
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