Day 4: Van Gogh Museum

So today we met at the Vincent Van Gogh Museum! The museum is the largest collection of Van Gogh paintings.  There are so many interesting things to learn about this amazing artist.  First of all, he did not decide to be an artist until he was about thirty years of age, and when he did start he was scared of using colors and mostly drew bleak gray landscapes.  Even once he started painting, he mostly used very dark brown and black tones.  After Van Gogh began his art career, it only lasted for ten years until the end of his life, but within that time he produced roughly 900 paintings and over 1000 drawings! This is especially amazing considering not a single work of his was ever bought.  Van Gogh was actually supported financially by his younger brother, Theo, who worked for an art gallery in Paris.  Van Gogh was a naive utopian who wanted nothing more than a harmonies society, especially in the art world.  He

a unique subject for VG

was constantly let down by his artist friends; Gauguin, Bernard, Cezanne to name a few and these disappointment often led to depression. In the late 1880s Van Gogh had health problems.  He  checked himself into a mental ward because he felt  unstable.  Although Van Gogh believed himself to be crazy, now many art historians think that his unstableness was either adult epilepsy or lead poisening (Van Gogh used his mouth to flatten his brushes when painting).  In 1890 Van Gogh shot himself in the chest in one of the fields he loved to so often paint.  His brother Theo died a year later, but Theo's son eventually inherited all of Van Gogh's work and was able to then open the museum in Amsterdam years later.


We arrived at ten when the museum opened and since we have museum passes we were allowed to forgo the line.  But even the line did not seem to long, although I subject that the line is much longer on weekends.  The museum holds four floors of works, most of which are Van Gogh, but there are also a few Manet, Monet, Surat, Gauguin and Lautrec works, and there is also a collection of Van Gogh's japanese prints that he and Theodore collected.  You aren't allowed to take pictures inside the museum but I snapped a few anyways--flash off of course.

After the museum we took a walk to the Volgen Park--by this point my feet were KILLING me (they didn't actually kill me, but they were at least making death threats); everyone knows you can't just leisurely stroll around after spending 3 hours standing in a museum!--which is a very central park-like place that even holds concerts every weekend.  Walking around the park I did notice one thing: no one in Amsterdam exercises. It rocks.  There wasn't a single person jogging in the park.  The dutch people are very active and ride bikes nearly everywhere but they are not addicted to working out like americans are.  Another thing I love about the dutch is that they were recently given the title of "tallest people in the world." With my tall stature I fit right in! Tall girls everywhere and they are even wearing heels.  I was spoken to three times today in dutch and I believe it's my height that does it!

cafe in the park and everyone's bikes

A is for Anna

After the park, we all went our separate ways.  A few of the girls; Jennifer, Erin and Angela and I walked back towards the museum and stopped at the famous I AMsterdam sign in front of the Rijks Museum.  As we walked by the sign, we stopped at kiosks of souvenirs and the saw the most ridiculous american paraphernalia.  It is so funny to see all the ideas other cultures have about America--even a very popular clothing store here is called "America Today." The USA is pretty much the popular kid at school. We then went into a few shops and caught a tram home.  I was totally exhausted and ended up watching Treasure Planet on my computer and gorging myself on Pringles.  Netflix and Hulu do not work here so thank god for the few random movies I have downloaded on my computer. Thanks Matt! You are a disney life saver.