MAROSBARAN: Van Gogh Museum

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

10.9.2012

In my first ever official visit in Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum was the thing, not to be missed. Wandering the streets of the capital of Netherlands, with 2 maps, getting lost every 5 minutes, maybe after one hour I appeared in the front of the building, which contains the biggest collection of one of my artistic heroes in painting.

Surroundings around the museum are absolutly beautifull... so much places to sit down and enjoy the existence in Amsterdam, just to sit next to the building of sunflower painter and think about the tragedy, which covered all his life, all his thoughts, all his paintings... Could he ever imagine, what his works start? What kind of influence his work will have hundred years later? How many artists, how many poets, how many people would he influence with his struggling life and tragic death? We will probably never know... all we can do is to wonder...

With these big thoughts I entered the museum, about which I was so thrilled... I had huge expectations and as I found out... maybe huge should be just big and everything would be perfect...

I was not so blown away... I am sorry, but I really have to tell that...

The building is spectacular... but the collection... I found her very very weak... the museum do have maybe the biggest collection of van Goghs, but I am not so sure, if they have the best pieces, which exist...

Huge wall just for one van Gogh selfportrait... the only, that exist, showing the artist with his brushes seemed weak and empty... I do understand the importance of that painting, but I did not get very good impression of the installation of that work...

And I was not very lucky – one parth of the exhibition was closed... who knows, what pieces they are hidding there...

However I was very happy to see his notorious painting of his room and his chair... both of them I really adore... also skull with cigarette and two versions of sunflowers, which they show there. His japanesse paintings I find very interesting as well, because they are showing his delicacy and strength of his painting.

Surprising for me was, when I saw the painting, which museum consider to be his last work... I have never seen it, nowhere in any artbook... of course I did know his „official“ last work - “Wheat Field with Crows”, which I consider as an ultimate van Gogh painting.

With what I was probably moved the most was surprisingly the photography of his grave. Resting in peace just next to his brother 's...

I can not imagine how hard it must have been for Johanna van Gogh-Bonger to carry on van Gogh's legacy... but what she have done, what she has achieved is really something what deserves respect... the big one. I wish there were more people like she was...