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van gogh musem

van gogh musem I was lucky enough to visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in November of last year. The museum was located in somewhat of a museum park. The Rijks museum and the Stedelijk Museum are located on the same block. A beautiful landscape of ponds and trees are centered around them. The Van Gogh Museum has an audio tour available in all languages via a handheld tour guide. Unfortunately, funds limited me to get the audio tour, but I was able to nonchalantly follow a British couple around most of the five floors. The museum chronologically directes you through a collection of Van Gogh's and his contemporery's works. The first painting that I wish to discuss is Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette. This is of course done by Vincent Van Gogh. It is an oil painting done in 1886 and fyi is 32 X 24.5 cm. (who new they had the metric system even back then). This is one of Van Gogh's earlier woks. It is thought to have been done while he was at an art academy in Antwerp, Belgium. The painting is done with thick hard brush strokes. For the most part it is an achromatic painting. It does not seem to be to concerned with anatomical accuracy of the human skeleton. The image is however unmistakable a skeleton smoking a cigarette. I'm not sure what the intent or message of Mr. Van Gogh was, but a conection could easily be made between the antismoking ads of today. I prefer to ignore that conection. I chose to write about this piece solely on the subject matter. It is haunting and was right in line with my current mindset in Amsterdam. Another piece that sparked my interest is called The Courtesan (after Eisen). It is another oil painting and was done in 1887 in Paris. Again the subject matter is the reason I am writing about this piece. I had never seen any eastern style art done by Van Gogh. While viewing it in the museum that was my first impression. I then thought that possibly his expressive brush strokes could be seen as similar to that of Japanese calligraphy. I am not sure if there is a direct correlation between the two. I did however find out that the "after Eisen" in the title refers to the Japanese artist Kesai Eisen. Eisen had a print in publication of this same character. Van Gogh copied and enlarged the Japanese figure by tracing on a grid, he also altered the colors and added animals such as the frog and the crane which were terms for prostitutes in France. The piece is vibrant bold and powerful. Sunflowers2 is the title of the next piece I will talk about. It is another oil painting. It was done in Arles in 1889. I do love sunflowers immensely, but the subject matter is not the only reason I like this work. The color scheme works extrremely well in this piece. Unlike the last piece, it is limited to basically two colors, yellow and green. The variation he achieves with shades and tints give the painting incredible depth with such a limited pallet. I also find in this piece as well as in his others is that his brush strokes alone are intriguing to look at. One other thing in this piece I find interesting is the shapes Van Gogh depicts. The vase is almost a flat shape. Little to no modeling goes on in it. Not only flat but it is also skewed or contorted. The flowers I think are less flat but still somewhat simplified. I find these things to be interesting because despite them or maybe because of them, this is an amazing painting to view. The warmth of colors, the brush stokes, and interesting depiction of a beautiful subject matter, all make this one of my favorite pieces I saw at the museum. The Van Gogh museum was one of the highlights of my trip to Amsterdam. No really it was. The City itself is beautiful, with its waterways and unique architecture, it offered much more than I anticipated. The Van Gogh Museum held inside it a collection of work done by a great artist. It was a wonderful experience to be able to view all the unique works done by this man as well as to learn a little bit more about him. Bibliography:

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