Van Gogh Museum.

After such a great experience on the Hop on - Hop off bus in Paris we chose to explore Amsterdam using the Hop on - Hop off canal cruise                

Our major stop for the day was at the art gallery square where we collected brochures for the Rijks Museum, Van Gogh Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art and over lunch the girls decided which one we would visit. A lot can be said for the design cover for tourist brochures and of course the one with the bright happy sun flowers on the cover won and we were off to the Van Gogh Museum.

We learnt long ago when visiting Art Galleries and Museums with children the best approach is to go to the gift shop first and let everyone choose their favourite postcard and then with something tangible, that is all theirs and in their own grubby little hands, we can set off to explore the gallery and find that piece of art and learn about the artist and that particular piece of work.

 My choice was 'Vase with Irises against a yellow background'. Van Gogh painted this in May 1890 just a few months before his tragic death while he was in the assylum in Saint-Remy. It was part of a study of Irises and the contrast of colour with violet and yellow. This still life is not the famous painting of Irises bought by Alan Bond in 1987 but is part of the same series and painted during a very troubled time for Van Gogh. He painted 70 works in his last 70 days and this being one of them. One of my favourite all time paintings because of its strong colour and subject of simple flowers in a vase.            Lee

I chose this picture of  'The Bedroom'  because I liked all the different bright colours Van Gogh used. He painted this in 1888 of his own bedroom in his yellow house in Arles. I found out that the walls were once purple but the painting has faded and now they are blue. We learnt this by watching a video about when they cleaned the painting last year and found the true colour underneath some old paint. The walls are slightly on an angle but he did this on purpose because the room was actually not straight. He wrote a letter to his brother Theo and told him about this painting. He did two other paintings of this room.                                                            Madison

This self portrait done in 1886 I liked as it was deep and moody and showed the depth of his "dark days". To me it looks like he is about 55-60 years old but in truth he was only 33 when he painted this in Paris. He was only to live another 4 years until he turned the gun on himself, shooting himself in the stomoch and dying in his brother Theo's arms 2 days later. What I also discovered is that there was a picture of a nude woman on this canvas first before he scraped it off and did this picture over the top. All this to be proved by X-ray.

Paul

I chose this painting of the happy sunflowers because I loved all the brightness and detail. I once had to draw a sunflower, but even though they may look easy, they are actually fairly hard to draw. I really understand how difficult it is to get all the fine detail. This was one of Van Gogh's favourite paintings he did, and we can tell this because he has signed his name on the vase. It  is said that he painted the sunflowers to impress  his friend, another very well known artist, Paul Gauguin, and welcome him to his home. He also painted 4 other sunflower paintings, some with yellow backgrounds and some with blue backgrounds, but this is the most famous of the 5. He then said that sunflowers were his flower, and since then, he loved them and so do I.         Charlotte

                                                                                     

Vincent Van Gogh only ever sold one painting in his life time. He was on the verge of becoming a known artist when he died at 37 years old. It was only after his death that his brother Theo's wife collected all his paintings, drawings and letters between the two brothers and dedicated her life to make him recognised as the famous Dutch post Impressionist that we know today.    

ArtisticalLee