State Museum

The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam or Rijksmuseum (English: State Museum) is a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian art.

The museum was founded in 1800 in The Hague to exhibit the collections of the Dutch stadholders. It was inspired by French example. By then it was known as the National Art Gallery (Dutch: Nationale Kunst-Gallerij). In 1808 the museum moved to Amsterdam on the orders of king Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. The paintings owned by that city, such as The Night Watch by Rembrandt, became part of the collection.



This is one of Johannes Vermeer paintings in Rijksmuseum, a Milk Maid portrait. Other collections found in Rijksmuseum are the works of Jacob Van Ruysdael, Frans Hals and Rembrandt.

Ship?

This innovative museum designed by Renzo Piano in the shape of the bow of a ship was mistakenly identified by many folks as warehouse. However, inside, it offers an excursion into the realms of science and technology, boasting interactive exhibits and displays on energy, the human body, creativity, engineering and genetics. As knowledge expands in the world, so do the exhibits. Although the emphasis here is clearly on fun, but some of the exhibits, such as that of a pickled animal fetus in a jar, might not be suitable for younger children. A generous rooftop terrace also invites museum-goers and sightseers to gaze across the city from a lofty vantage point.

Most Visited

One of the most visited museums in Amsterdam. Van Gogh museum contains the largest collection of paintings by Vincent Van Gogh in the world. It provides the opportunity to keep track of the artist's developments, or compare his paintings to works by other artists from the 19th century in the collection. The museum also holds an extensive offer of exhibitions on various subjects from 19th-century art history.

Paint Of Life

Vincent van Gogh painted a lot of self-portraits, experimenting with various techniques and approaches (and saving money on a model!). Many, including this one, are not finished to the same level of detail throughout, but are psychologically powerful nonetheless. Van Gogh's style of self-portrait (the poses, the intense brushwork, the introspective expression) influenced the portraits created by Expressionist painters such as Emil Nolde, Erich Heckel, and Lovis Corinth.

Vincent van Gogh believed that "Painted portraits have a life of their own, something that comes from the roots of the painter's soul, which a machine cannot touch. The more often people look at photos, the more they will feel this, it seems to me."
(Letter from Vincent van Gogh to his brother, Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, c.15 December 1885.)

This self-portrait is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which opened in 1973. The museum holds some 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 700 letters by Van Gogh, as well as his personal collection of Japanese prints. The works originally belonged to Vincent's brother Theo (1857-1891), then passed to his wife, and then her son, Vincent Willem van Gogh (1890-1978). In 1962 he transferred the works to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, where they form the nucleus of the Van Gogh Museum's collection.