A week in Amsterdam was a nicely welcomed break from reality; relaxing, visiting some of the best museums in the world and involving myself in a new culture. I’ve been to Amsterdam before but only visited a few of the smaller museums, whereas this time we visited the Rembrandt Haus museum, the Rijksmuseum, Steadlick, and Van Gogh museums.
The Rijksmuseum was possibly my favourite museum I’ve ever visited! When I studied Rembrandts ‘The Night Watch’ I genuinely thought it was around A3 size, so to turn into the Gallery of Honours and it be filling the far wall I got such a shock and a bit too excited. It was huge and astonishing. So impressive, we all stood in front of it for ages. To see the detail so up close was amazing, and I learned that several times it had been sabotaged (once with acid but it was washed off quickly enough that it didn’t cause too much damage, and another time it had been slashed) and you can still see some of the marks now. I’m so glad to be able to have seen it first hand, and it enabled me to actually understand it more; more meaning, characters, theories, iconography, everything!
It was also a treat to view some Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet paintings alongside each other both in Rijksmuseum and the Steadlick. The Steadlick was not really to my taste as it was very modern and many pieces were quite abstract, but the lower ground floor’s chronologically exhibited paintings showed more Van Gogh and even Kandinsky, and again seeing the up close detail was UNREAL. These paintings included Van Gogh’s ‘Augustine Roulin (Rocking a Cradle)’ 1889 and ‘Kitchen Gardens on Montmartre’ 1887, Cezanne’s ‘La Montagne Sainte-Victoire’ 1888, and Monet’ ‘La Corniche near Monaco’ 1984. For me, currently studying impasto and Impressionism for a few of my assessments, being able to see the technique up close has been really helpful and given me a better idea of the effect it creates.
I think one of the most mind blowing, chilling pieces for everyone from all the visits we had was the striped jacket from an Auschwitz survivor in the Rijks. It was such a shock to turn from Bauhaus art into solid, painful history. The jacket was of a teenage girl who lost her parents and managed survived 3 concentration camps herself. The real reality check was the family photo album of theirs placed open underneath. It was truly chilling and was a feeling I’ll always remember.
HXLLISON ART HISTORY 