To view the finest and largest collection of Vincent van Gogh's paintings, visit the Van Gogh Museum, where the artist's works (200 paintings and nearly 500 drawings) chart his intense and ultimately tragic life. The collection takes you through his early period, when he was a missionary in the Dutch coal fields; pieces include such dark social commentary as The Potato Eaters. His later Parisian work reflects the influence of the Impressionists, but it is the paintings inspired by his life at Aries, in sunny Provence (France), that exhilarate with their fiery yellows and oranges. The most famous works are the iconic Sunflowers series. Conversely, The Garden of St. Paul's Hospital, painted at St.Remy mental asylum the year before van Gogh's death, is a heartrending evocation of a dejected figure. The trees are as rigid
as the bars of a cell. But the sum of the Van Gogh Museum, the painter's legacy of outstanding work, is wholly positive and uplifting. There are other works by such contemporaries of Van Gogh as Tolouse Lautrec, Gauguin and Redon. The adjacent Stedelijk Museum is one of the finest and most exuberant collections of modern art in the world.
The next museum down, with its main entrance at Paulus Potterstraat 7, is the recently refurbished and expanded Van Gogh Museum designed by Gerrit Rietveld (the recent expansion onto Museumplein, a separate exhibition wing designed by Kishio Kurosawa, is commonly known as 'the Mussel'). It opened in 1973 to house the collection of Vincent's younger brother Theo, which consists of about 200 paintings and 500 drawings by Vincent and his friends or contemporaries, such as Gauguin, ToulouseLautrec, Monet and Bernard.
Vincent van Gogh (pronounced 'khokh', rhyming with Scottish 'loch') was born in 1853 and had a short but very productive
life. He didn't begin painting until 1881 and produced most of his works in the four years he spent in France, where he shot himself to escape mental illness in 1890 (he had already cut off his own ear after an argument with Gauguin). Famous works on display include The Potato Eaters (1885), a prime example of his sombre Dutch period, and The Yellow House in Arles (1888), The Bedroom at Arles (1888) and several selfportraits, sunflowers and other blossoms that show his vivid use of colour in the intense Mediterranean light. One of his last paintings, Wheatfield with Crows (1890), is an ominous work foreshadowing his suicide.
His paintings are on the Ist floor; the other floors display his drawings and Japanese prints as well as works by friends and contemporaries, some of which are shown in rotation. The museum is open daily from 10 am to 6 pm and costs f15.50 (f5 for children, free under 12 years). The library, with a wealth of reference material for serious study, is open Monday to Friday from 10 am to 12.30 pm and 1. 15 to 5 pm.
To view the finest and largest collection of Vincent van Gogh's paintings, visit the Van Gogh Museum, where the artist's works (200 paintings and nearly 500 drawings) chart his intense and ultimately tragic life. The collection takes you through his early period, when he was a missionary in the Dutch coal fields; pieces include such dark social commentary as The Potato Eaters. His later Parisian work reflects the influence of the Impressionists, but it is the paintings inspired by his life at Aries, in sunny Provence (France), that exhilarate with their fiery yellows and oranges. The most famous works are the iconic Sunflowers series. Conversely, The Garden of St. Paul's Hospital, painted at St.Remy mental asylum the year before van Gogh's death, is a heartrending evocation of a dejected figure. The trees are as rigid
as the bars of a cell. But the sum of the Van Gogh Museum, the painter's legacy of outstanding work, is wholly positive and uplifting. There are other works by such contemporaries of Van Gogh as Tolouse Lautrec, Gauguin and Redon. The adjacent Stedelijk Museum is one of the finest and most exuberant collections of modern art in the world.
