Van Gogh Museum

Today I visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It was exciting that as a Dutch Impressionist painter Van Gogh was based in the Netherlands, where I was studying abroad. The outside of the museum was covered in glass, almost like a flower vase. The founding story of the museum was very interesting: Van Gogh's unsold paintings had been passed down in the family and eventually opened as a museum under his nephew.

Van Gogh’s works are known to be bold with dramatic brush strokes that express emotion and add a feeling of movement. His all time popular pieces include: The Starry Night, Self Portrait, Sunflowers, etc.

In front of the Van Gogh Museum

Impressionism

After Van Gogh moved to Paris he met many impressionist artists, famously Monet. Impressionism usually portrays light and colour in more dreamlike, blotchy, hazy figures. In Exploring the Arts: A Brief Introduction to Art, Theatre, Music, and Dance Impression mean to:

“capture the fleeting moment, the reflection of light on surfaces, and the treatment of light as if it were a physical substance” (Spieth et al., 2022)"

In other words, artists draw their impression of an object rather than the depicted reality.  It was interesting to see how the influence of these artists melted into Van Gogh’s artwork. Instead of his signature bold, defined style, it was more soft and hazy. Below is an example of an impressionist painting he drew.

Le Restaurant de la Sirène à Asnières, 1887

Having been spoiled by museums during my mini trip to Paris last week, I was fortunate enough to compare Van Gogh’s works between the Amsterdam Van Gogh Museum and Musée d'Orsay. Below are two examples: bedrooms and self portraits. 

Left: Self-Portrait as a Painter, 1887-1888 (VGM) Right: Portrait of the Artist, 1889 (MDO)

Van Gogh painted a many self portraits throughout his lifetime but I wanted to compare these two pieces since they showed his top and low points in life. On the left is Van Gogh painting. Van Gogh said "the only time I feel alive is when I'm painting" Overall the mood is a lot more calm, his eyes and gaze more gentler. On the other hand the portrait on the right was him during his stay at the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Remy. In this letter to his brother he writes "my features are a lot more calmer, although my expression is more unfocused than before" Yet despite his words the swirling movement, cold tone and firmly set mouth express sadness and anxiety.

Top: Bedroom in Arles 1st Version, 1888 (VGM) Bottom: Bedroom in Arles 3rd Version, 1889 (MDO)

It was fascinating to see similar yet subtly different versions of his yellow room in Arles, France. The one at the bottom(Van Gogh Museum) was the first version of a three part series of "Bedroom in Arles". In a letter to his brother, Van Gogh explains he aimed for "simple, plain colors like crepes" and painted it recovering from a sickness. In contrast the top one is the final version and has more definition and vibrant colors. It is amazing to see the transition of physically recovery Van Gogh must've gone through depicted in these paintings.

The Van Gogh Museum also had a special exhibition on a contemporary artist Matthew Wong, whose style echoed Van Gogh. Outside of artistic style, both artists also had commonalities in upbringing and mental health. It was incredible seeing Wong’s original and recreations of paintings. They seemed so similar yet had a modem twist to it. Here is a recreation of Wong’s take on the Starry Night.

Matthew Wong - Starry Night, 2019

It was interesting how the museum also integrated mindfulness workshops like meditation + drawing for patrons. Traditionally an art institution it took the additional responsibility for partrons’ mental health. The museum also had a corner for "Feeling Van Gogh" or a sensory art experience. Patrons could experience Van Gogh's sunflower through smell and touch. The yellow had an examples of what the painting would smell like, the monocolor was a tacttile. The big painting on the right could be touched to feel the paint strokes and texture fo the painting. The visually impaired, children, patrons -everyone curious enough could benefit from this corner.

"Feeling Van Gogh" experience

Content warning: The below section touches upon sensitive topics such as suicide. To readers who may be sensitive to this content, please take note.

Similar to Van Gogh, Matthew Wong had taken his own life but the museum’s approach in partnering with a suicide assistance organization to offer proper assistance in artwork descriptions was novel. Although they did make effort to acknowledge such issues, I wonder how it would’ve looked like if Van Gogh’s mental health was more openly discussed in relation with his artwork. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the Van Gogh Museum as an art admirer but also because I got to compare artworks with the D’Orsay. It was exciting to see the artworks that I would only read about in textbooks in front of my eyes.