Anyone who is a lover of fine art or appreciates the artistry of the master painters of past ages; a trip to Amsterdam can provide excellent opportunities to enjoy many museums that pay honor and tribute to several European masters. The Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam is one of the most exceptional museums anywhere. It holds the unique honor of housing the most extraordinary collection of Vincent Van Gogh’s original artwork, right in the very heart of Amsterdam city.
This Museum provides guests the unparalleled opportunity to carefully follow the genius painter’s artistic progress and to see the rise of both his style and the subject matter that held his interest and provoked his creativity. At the same time, with the many pieces of art by his contemporaries on display, it is unique to compare Van Gogh’s paintings to the works created by the hands of other masters of 19th-century art.
Vincent Van Gogh lived in Paris from 1886 until 1888, and while there, he acquired an intense interest in Japanese prints. Over the years, he voraciously bought Japanese woodcut art, and this Museum Amsterdam now displays the collection he accumulated, which numbers approximately 500 prints on exhibit.
This unique and fantastic collection stays in the Print Room, in the exhibition wing of this Museum. The collection is an exhibit parallel to the major exhibition of the collection of Siegfried Bing, the art dealer from whom he purchased most Japanese prints. The presentation of Van Gogh’s work in the Print Room also includes several works by him that were strongly influenced by the Japanese art he was so enamored with.
This Museum in Amsterdam allows visitors to enjoy access to the world’s most massive accumulation of original works by Van Gogh, including his paintings, drawings, and even many personal letters.
Some of the contemporaries of Van Gogh, whose work is also on exhibition at the Museum, are familiar names like Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Jean-Franois Millet, Lon L’hermitte, and many others as well, all of which are part of the display that highlights the art that these masters created toward the end of the 19th century.
The robust collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam combines approximately 800 letters of correspondence, which are in the artist’s hand. These letters, many of which were written to his dear brother, Theo, and artist friends such as Paul Gauguin, provide some fascinating glimpses and insights into the life, the mind and the heart of this intellectual and master artist whose work is so beloved by people all around the globe.
The Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam is situated in two marvelous edifices, both of which are reflective of a beautiful style of modernist architecture that is quite prevalent and seen in a significant number of Amsterdam Netherlands structures. With the Museum paying homage in a magnificent way to one of the most famous artists of Holland, any visitor to the Amsterdam area will unquestionably be fascinated by the exhibits that showcase the handiwork of Vincent Van Gogh a peculiar way.
