19th Century Art

Yes, the bad weather has certainly caught up with us. But being the troopers we are, we don’t let it stop us from getting out and about. Our main stop today was the Van Gogh Museum which is across the street from the Rijksmuseum we visited yesterday.

While most people headed straight for the main museum and the Van Gogh exhibit, we first went to the special exhibit on Gustav Klimt. Klimt was an Austrian painter heavily influenced by Van Gogh, Matisse and Monet. His most famous painting is The Kiss.

Here are some of the works we did see.

You can certainly see the Monet influence in this painting.

And Van Gogh in this one.

This was his muse Emilie Floge.

And, finally, this was the painting he was working on when he died in 1918. He had a stroke, then developed pneumonia. He was only 55 years old.

After an enjoyable 30 minutes in the virtually empty Klimt exhibit, we headed to the much more crowded main gallery to see the works of Van Gogh. I was amazed by how much work he did in his 37 years. He was not well known during his lifetime and most of his works were owned by family. The famous Starry Night series of paintings are located in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, so we saw those in 2018. But we saw many of his other masterpieces today. There were at least 18 self-portraits. He did so many because he couldn’t afford to pay models.

I thought this was cool. It is his actual palette.

Van Gogh couldn’t afford to buy frames for his paintings, so he made them himself. The frame around this painting is the last remaining frame made by Van Gogh.

Van Gogh wanted to be the most famous painter of sunflowers in the world. I think he succeeded.

This bedroom was in this house in Arles, France.

Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin were buddies. Gauguin stayed with Vincent for 2 months in this house. He painted this painting of Van Gogh painting sunflowers.

It was during this time that, after an argument with Gauguin, Vincent cut off his left ear with a razor. He was found several days later covered in blood. After that he spent a year in the mental hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Despite his unstable mental health, he was very productive, painting about 150 paintings that, including…

And my favorite “flower” painting….

This painting was Van Gogh’s final painting. It is also unfinished, but I can’t really see what still needs to be done.

We took so many more photos, but I think I’ve included his most important/famous pieces. The paintings we saw today were so different from the ones we saw yesterday in the Rijksmuseum. With the Dutch Masters you can see every strand of hair on the subject’s head, every fold in the tablecloth and every crack in the loaf of bread. In fact, the bread looks like you could reach in a grab a bite. It is just the opposite with the Impressionists. Their paintings aren’t exactly abstract, but often the lines are indistinct and blurred. While I enjoyed seeing their work today, I like the Dutch Masters better.

The weather was still okay when we left the museum, so we headed back to the tram to do a walk by of Anne Frank’s house. We didn’t get to it the last time we were here and, even though we can’t do the stairs, Peter still wanted to see it.

Unfortunately, the house is undergoing renovations, so this is all he saw.

Just as we left the house to head towards the tram, it started raining. Not pouring but enough to get very wet. So, like yesterday, we ducked into the closest restaurant, a sandwich and pancake house.

Oh, foodies, you’ve been so patient the last couple of days (or have you…I wouldn’t have blamed you if you checked out halfway through yesterday’s post). Lunch wasn’t terribly exciting, but it was good. Peter had Wienerschnitzel.

And I have French Onion Soup and a Toastie. I was so cold that I just wanted something warm. The soup was delicious but the Toastie was just okay. Not as good as the one I had in France.

I had a little order envy when the women next to us got their lunch, Dutch pancakes, because they really looked good. I think pancakes, I think thick and heavy. But they were more like crepes, which would have been lovely.

Luckily, by the time we finished lunch, the rain had stopped so we very quickly made our way to the tram for the short ride back to the central station. Like most main stations in Europe, this one is also a beautiful building.

Just as we were getting to the hotel, the rain started again. We managed to get inside before getting wet and are now, once again, snug in our room. I think we may head to the Executive Lounge for happy hour tonight. We missed yesterday but I think a free glass of prosecco is in order.

Tomorrow is a chore day. There are no laundry facilities at the hotel, but there is a launderette a short walk away. I also have to find a place to pack/mail a small box home. We haven’t bought much in the last 6 weeks but it’s enough to make the suitcase rather bulky. Besides, Peter bought his 5th jigsaw puzzle (The Nightwatch) today and there’s no way I get that in the suitcase. And finally, tomorrow afternoon is hair cut/color day for me…yeah! I’m not sure if Peter is even going to leave the hotel. He said he’ll wait for me in the Executive Lounge which is open all day. At least I’ll know where he is while I’m running errands and getting gorgeous.