Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

I have never studied art. I took two years of art in school, was no good at anything, and learned zero. But for some reason, I love art museums, and most of all, oil paintings. I love learning about artists and watching them grow from naive youngsters to seasoned artists through their works. But I have never been deeply moved by a piece of art before, until Van Gogh. In the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, I found myself standing in front of a landscape painting of a harvest and crying. I wasn’t even a huge fan of Van Gogh before coming to this museum, but after going through a lifetime of his works, I couldn’t help it. I just stood there and cried.

From my travel journal:

The weather is rather gloomy today, with a light drizzle of rain. I’m still getting used to the colder weather, after having spent nearly a month under the baking sun of Italy, Hungary, and Czech Republic.

The bad weather did provide me with an excuse to push off my day of bicycling. I had come to Amsterdam intent on renting a bike for a day, but after seeing how quickly and aggressively the locals bike here, I am feeling a little nervous about getting on the road (especially after our incident in Rome, even though that was in a park¹).

So instead, I decided to go to the Van Gogh museum.

It took me two hours to go through all of Van Gogh’s exhibitions, and to be honest, the museum’s collection did not contain his most famous works (“Starry Night” and “Café Terrace At Night”, for example), but it did provide a chronological and insightful look into how Van Gogh developed as an artist and as a person. The audio guide was really superb at painting him as a person, because it included monologues from letters he had written to his brother, Theo (his greatest supporter) throughout his lifetime.

Van Gogh’s earlier works focused on the life of the lower class, the peasants and farmers, and used dark colours much in the style of Dutch works from that period (he was, after all, a Dutch first and foremost). These paintings are very different from the style that he became known for, which I think can be attributed mostly to French influences of the Impressionist and (later) Neo-Impressionist variety. However, there was one work from his early years that impressed itself in my memory, and that was his first attempt at a group portrait, called “The Potato Eaters”.

I found it memorable not because of the painting itself, but because of the criticism he received for it. Van Gogh himself considered the painting to be a success, because it successfully portrayed the humble and hardworking peasants eating a simple meal that they had earned at the end of a long day. However, other artists criticized Van Gogh’s lack of skill as an artist. What impresses me is Van Gogh’s response to this criticism: “Whatever” (my modern interpretation of his reaction, which was to send back the letter of criticism to its writer). I was surprised at how unaffected he was by the criticism, both as a professional and as a person. He did not alter his belief that his painting was a success, nor did he allow himself to doubt his abilities as an artist. To me, “The potato eaters” is an early example of Van Gogh’s passion for art.

Van Gogh’s happiest times were undoubtedly in Arles (one of the towns in southern France that we ended up skipping, to my chagrin), although in my mind, his artwork from this period was not his best. This period was more of a time of practice for him, experimenting with light colours and pointillism². From this period, “Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer” (June 1888) stood out to me, as did “The Harvest” (June 1888).

I saw “The Harvest” at the very end of the Arles exhibition, and knowing what was to come later in his life, it made me cry. I literally stood in front of the painting, in an exhibit filled with people, and started to cry. It was so completely heartbreaking to me, to hear of his enthusiasm and optimism, his love for nature’s beauty and his passion for life, and to know that he would be gravely disappointed by life. I felt the same way when I saw the “Yellow House” but it did not move me to tears as “The Harvest” did. I was rooted to the spot in front of the painting, unable to bring myself to the next exhibit, which displayed his paintings from his days in a mental hospital in Saint-Rémy.

“The garden of St. Paul’s Hospital” (October 1889) was a moving picture from his time in the mental hospital. It is one of my favourites, although not a painting I care to own because it is all about anguish. At first glance, it doesn’t seem nearly as dark as it could be, with a bright vivid sunset in the background. But the sunset is outside the walls, outside his confines, out of reach. What is within reach is a tree with one large stump cut off. The gnarly trees of the garden in the courtyard might have meant to be tranquil, but, from Van Gogh’s eyes, they are not soothing at all. The dark outlines show influence from Japanese prints, as it was well-known that Van Gogh greatly admired, and collected, Japanese prints. Surprisingly, the picture does not evoke a sense of depression or loneliness, but only of anguish, as if the setting sun is indicative of the setting of his life, and while the sun may be renewed by a new day, he will only be getting closer to death within the confines of the walls.

Luckily, Van Gogh continued to paint, relatively optimistically I would say, during these days, and produced my favourite painting of the entire museum, “Wheatfield with a reaper” (Sept. 1889).

You really have to see the original painting to appreciate it, because I’ve seen print and even oil reproductions of this painting and it is nowhere near as striking as the original. In the original, the wheatfield is dynamic and moving, a brilliant golden sea like nothing I’ve ever seen. The sky is a rich turquoise. And I know Van Gogh must have liked this painting a lot too, for it contained his favourite colour: yellow – and my favourite combination of his: yellow and blue. There is a reaper in the field, working diligently to harvest the wheat. What struck me as bizarre was the fact that he is alone. He is working alone with a scythe in a vast sea of gold, and he almost looks like a demon, or the reaper that takes away human souls. Maybe this is what Van Gogh was thinking, but this was not a sad painting. If anything, it shows Van Gogh’s acceptance of death, of what was to come, inevitably, for everyone.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to buy either of these paintings at the gift shop because they were either poor print reproductions, expensive (and poor) canvas reproductions, or non-existent. I did end up buying a print reproduction of “Wheatfield under thunderclouds” because I thought it was the best display of Van Gogh’s own style, even though the painting had not moved me the way “The Harvest” did.

On the street, I also bought a small canvas reproduction of “Café Terrace At Night” because it was my first favourite painting (before I ever started going to art museums and learning about artists and styles) and the entire reason for my being interested in Van Gogh in the first place.

In the future, I hope to own original paintings. That is why I buy print reproductions of my favourite pieces every time I go to an art museum. First, it’s so I won’t forget my favourite paintings from their exhibit. Second, it’s to support the museum, because I’d rather get the print from their gift shop (for a higher price) than to buy it off a street vendor.
I’m not a serious art lover, and I don’t plan to be a professional art collector by any means. But I know what I like and why I like it, and of the prints that I have bought, I continue to be enthralled by them each time I look at them, and that is enough for me to justify an investment.

Being on the road for as long as we have been, it’s a bit tricky to carry around giant art prints or canvases. That’s why I’ve refrained from buying large prints so far on the trip; instead, I’ve been resorting to buying small prints or postcards. However, since we’re close to our last stop, Paris, and I know I’m going to be buying art prints there, I think I’ll be able to bring these art prints home without much damage.

In total I ended up bringing home 2 large art prints, 3 small prints, 2 real paintings, and countless postcards. If/When I return to Europe and I have settled down (more permanently), I’m definitely planning to buy real canvases with which to decorate my home.

1. I have yet to blog about this, but in Rome, Charmander, Violinist and I got into an accident in a riscio. [↩]
2. A la Georges Seurat, whose famous painting “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” is still in my mind after I saw it in Chicago. [↩]