I have been an ultra tourist today. Up and out before anyone else in my room was even awake, I predicted the visitor onslaught at Anne Frank's house and headed straight there. I hadn't predicted it accurately enough though, and the queue was up the street and round the corner even when I got there at just gone 9 o'clock. There was absolutely no way I was waiting, not on my own, so instead I headed towards Museumplein where the Van Gogh Museum, Stedelijk Museum and Rijksmuseum are. The square is a gorgeous place and hundreds of people had already gathered on the grass and in the gardens to enjoy the sun. It would have been a fantastic photo op for the tourist board on a day like today, although it's garbage day and there's an unpleasant stink in the air.
The Van Gogh Museum is a fascinating and exhustingly in-depth study of an incredibly complex artist; it's the first time I've ever realised just how broad and contrasting his body of work is, having only consciously been aware of his most famous works. Those works expose the isolation in which they were painted - his self portraits, his representations of his bedroom, his chair, a vase of sunflowers - but so much of his work was of landscapes, agricultural settings and gardens. You can also see the shifting techniques throughout his work as he experimented with his medium, and in the museum famous works by historical artists and his contemporaries sit beside his own to highlight their influences on him. Seeing his fascination with Japanese art and the many replications of Japanese prints he did, suddenly the bold, contrasting and unnatural outlines he painted around his subject matter made sense. His work done while at his various art schools shows very traditional styles and techniques, and his breakaway from that after leaving his education is very apparent. Focusing on the unnatural colour choices he made for his subject matter after learning he studied colour theory and what the most impactful colour contrasts are allows for a much greater appreciation for his artistic technique and his more seemingly-simple work's appeal.
The main issue I had there is the way people went about interacting with the work. Most people were walking up to a painting, taking a picture of it, then moving on to the next one. Some were even taking a picture of the painting, then a picture of the information sign next to it so they could read about the painting they didn't even bother looking at later. When I look at a painting, I want to study the brush strokes and the varying ways in which the paint was applied to the canvas/paper/wood/cardboard/tea towel, which is very difficult when you are constantly being moved out of the way so that someone can take a picture of their snotbag kids in front of it.
After two hours there, I went to the Stedelijk Museum, which houses a massive collection of modern art and design. There was some fantastic things there, ranging from paintings, sculptures, furniture, glassware and kitchenware from movements such as Bauhaus, De Stijl, CoBrA and artists like Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and loads of others I should be aware of but embarrassingly am not. I know I should have gone to the Rijksmuseum as well, but after 2 hours in the first museum and 2 hours in the second, I really was saturated with information.
I walked up to Rembrandtplein where I got some fries. Not my idea of a great meal, but Holland is famed for their chips and mayonnaise, and man do they drown them in that stuff. After a drink in the sun there, I walked to Waterlooplein where they have an all-day flea market. It wasn't so much of a flea market as a normal tat market that can be seen all around Britain week in week out, but wandering the streets and canals on such a gloriously cloudless day was nice in itself, and I leisurely made my way back to my hostel for a little rest after buying some sunglasses and an Ajax scarf.
It's no secret what the rest of my room have been up to today. Every single one of them comatose by 6 o'clock, and it doesn't look like any of them will be up to much this evening. I headed out by myself, grabbed a few beers, got some food and organised everything for my train journey tomorrow like a proper grown up. I went into a nice bar called Cafe Van Beeren where I asked for a drink in my best Dutch, only to find out the lady behind the bar was from Yorkshire. It has a resident cat, which lounged itself next to me on the bar (awesome).
I had another explore of the red light district to try and wrap my head round it, which I unsuccessfully tried yesterday. Equally as fascinating as all the sordid things on display are the tourists, especially the middle aged couples who point things out so matter-of-factly to each other as they would if they were in a museum. The Theatre Casa Rosso had a queue comprising of both men and women stretching down the street. The bouncer at The Sex Palace was explaining to three American girls what they could expect to see inside. Bars and restaurants lie between the red lights on the main streets as well, where people eat and drink as if there's nothing out of the ordinary going on whatsoever. I've learned that its very fun place to experience with company, but alone I felt very self-conscious and got the hell out of there soon enough.
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| Casa Rosso |
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| Sex Palace |
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| Amsterdam at night |
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