Saturday, August 6, 2011

Day Twelve: Amsterdam, the Netherlands

This was the last day of my trip.  I returned to Amsterdam, where I began my journey through the Low Countries.  After twelve intense days of sightseeing I was ready for a slower paced day.  On this last day, I decided to take in one of the best museums in Amsterdam, the Van Gogh museum.  This was an excellent choice for my last day.  Not only is the museum beautiful in its physical design, but also it presents Van Gogh’s work in the greater context of how he developed as an artist and how he interacted with his peer artists.  Although I had studied Van Gogh in college, I had not really understood the network of relationships between all these artists:  Pissarro, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, etc. The museum does an excellent job of creating the context artistically and personally of Van Gogh’s work and his overall significance in shaping modern 20th century art.  The museum has such a vast collection of both his work and his contemporaries’ work that it can highlight and historicize his work in a very information way.  Great museum and a super way to end an fabulous trip through the Low Countries and Normandy!

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