Van Gogh - The Master and His Museum

Self Portrait of Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh
Born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, a village in Brabant, in the south of the Netherlands. In 1880, Vincent van Gogh decides to become an artist, moves to Brussels and considers enrolling at the art academy, but instead tries to study independently, sometimes in the company of Dutch artist Anthon van Rappard. In late 1881, van Gogh spends several weeks in The Hague, taking painting lessons from his cousin by marriage, Anton Mauve, a leading member of the Hague School. Mauve introduces him to watercolor and oil technique. Van Gogh makes his first independent watercolor and painted studies in the summer 1882. In the same year, he receives his first commission. His uncle Cornelis van Gogh asks him to produce 12 pen and ink drawings of The Hague. In 1885, he completes his first masterpiece - The Potato Eaters.

Van Gogh was a largely self-taught artist who went on to change the face of Post-impressionism forever. A troubled yet highly-skilled painter, van Goghs work was an outlet for his emotion, particularly battling depression. Upon moving to Paris, van Gogh was hugely inspired by the works of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists and he adopted their bright palette and developed a unique style which continues to be emulated by artists to this day.

Working at an often furious pace, van Gogh produced more than 2.000 works of art, including 900 paintings and 1.100 drawings and sketches in his 10-year career. However, he sold only one painting during his lifetime and did not become successful until after his death.


The Museum in Amsterdam

Van Gogh Museum - Amsterdam

Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam contains the largest collection of paintings by Vincent van Gogh in the world. Every year the museum attracts approximately 1,5 million visitors from all over the world. The Museum's permanent collection includes more than 200 paintings by Van Gogh and many drawings and letters. If you visit the museum, you will see various works in periods of : Early Works until 1886; Paris (1886-1888); Arles (1888-1889); Saint-Rémy (1889-1890); Auvers (1890). You will also see works by other artists, Van Gogh's friends and contemporaries, those who inspired him and those who drew inspiration from him, such artists as Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, and many others including Japanese drawings and pictures that inspired Van Gogh. 

The Museum is easy to find in Amsterdam. In the same neighborhood you will also find Rijksmuseum, the largest museum of art and history in the Netherlands and Stedelijk Museum, dedicated to modern and contemporary art and design. Although until 25 April 2013 Van Gogh Museum collection are located in Hermitage Amsterdam due to renovations in Van Gogh Museum. Hermitage Amsterdam is located at Amstel  51.

My Favorite Van Gogh's Works
Some of my favorites that are located in this Museum :

Boulevard de Clichy, 1887

Boulevard de Clichy is a street in Montmarte, the artists' neighborhood where Vincent stayed with his brother Theo from March 1886. 

The Boulevard played an important role in Van Gogh's life. The Café du Tambourin and the Moulin Rouge were located here, as was the studio of Fernand Cormon, where he studied for a time.Several of his friends also lived here as well: John Russell, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. The Boulevard de Clichy is more Impressionist in style. This painting is in the collection of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Fishing boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, 1988

At the Beginning of June 1988, Vincent visited the fishing village of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, where, in a matter of days, he produced two seascape, a view of village and nine drawings.This painting is in the collection of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Landscape at Twilight, 1890

One of my ultimate favorite. 'A Crepuscular Effect: two pear trees, wholly black, against a yellow sky, with grain-fields; and, in the purple background, the castle, enfolded by dark foliage'. This was how Van Gogh described the evocative landscape he painted shortly after sunset in the surroundings of the château at Auvers. This painting is in the collection of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Pollard Birches, 1884

Trees were important source of inspirations for van Gogh. Gnarled willows, oaks and beeches are the main motif in some twenty of his drawings and paintings. In a letter to Theo from 1882, van Gogh revealed that he saw 'something like a soul' in trees. He must have been similarly inspired when he depicted these expressive, rather tragic-looking pollard birches. This work is one of a group of six pen drawings of landscapes that van Gogh produced in Nuenen during the first half of March 1884. This drawing is in the collection of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

The Yellow House ('The Street'), 1888

In May 1888, van Gogh rented four rooms on the right-hand side of a house on the Place Lamartine in Arles. His living quarters were the ones with the green shutters. His bedroom lay beyond. Van Gogh had finally found a place where he could not only paint but also welcome his friends.His goal was to establish a "Studio of the South", where he and like-minded artists could work together.This painting is in the collection of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

The Vicarage at Nuenen, 1885

Around 5 December 1883, Vincent left Drenthe, where he had been working for the last three months, for Nuenen - a village in the province of Brabant where his father was a pastor since 1882. He stayed with his family in the vicarage from December 1883 until May 1885. This painting is in the collection of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Worn Out, 1882

'What a fine sight an old working man makes, in his patched bombazine suit with his bald head' van Gogh wrote to his brother on 24 November 1882, with reference to this drawing. The old workman was Adrianus Zuyderland, resident of the Dutch Protestant Almshouse for Old Men and Women. In return for a small payment, various residents of the almshouse regularly spent a morning or afternoon posing for van Gogh.This drawing is in the collection of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.















Some of my favorites that are located elsewhere around the world:

The Round of Prisoners,1890

The Round of Prisoners was painted after an engraving by Gustave Doré. It is suggested that the face of the prisoner in the center of the painting and looking toward the viewer is van Gogh himself, although the noted van Gogh scholar Jan Hulsker discount this. This painting is in the collection of Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow.

Starry Night over the Rhone, 1888

Starry Night over the Rhone is one of Van Gogh's paintings of Arles at night. It was painted at a spot on the bank of the Rhone river that was only a minute or two's walk from the Yellow House on the Place Lamartine which Van Gogh was renting at the time. The night sky and the effects of  light at night provided the subject for some of his more famous paintings, including Cafe Terrace at Night and The Starry Night. This painting is in the collection of Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Road with Cypress and Star, 1890

Road with Cypress and Star, was painted in May 1890. In earlier letter to his brother Theo, van Gogh wrote that cypresses were always 'always occupying (his) thoughts' and that he found them 'beautiful of line' and proportioned like Egyptian obelisk. He had also intended on painting a nighttime view of the trees since his stay in Arles in 1888.This painting is in the collection of Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.

The Starry Night, 1889

The Starry Night, my other great favorite, depicts the view outside van Gogh's sanatorium room window at Saint-Rémy. Starry Night is one of the most well known images in modern culture as well as being one of the most replicated and sought after prints. Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo ' This morning I saw the country  from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big'. Rooted in imagination and memory, The Starry Night embodies as inner, subjective expression of van Goghs response to nature. This painting is in the collection of Museum of Modern Art, New York.





Note: This blog is based on research on various articles, books and sites as well as private visit to Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam