Amsterdam (Rough Guide) - Martin Dunford [73]
The Museum Quarter and the Vondelpark | Museumplein | The Van Gogh Museum | The collection |
Van Gogh’s ear
In February 1888, Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) left Paris for Arles, a small town in the south of France. At first the move went well, with van Gogh warming to the open vistas and bright colours of the Provençal countryside. In September he moved into the dwelling he called the Yellow House, where he hoped to establish an artists’ colony, gathering together painters of like mind. Unfortunately for van Gogh, his letters of invitation were ignored by most, and only Gauguin, who arrived in Arles in late October, stayed for long. Initially the two artists got on well, hunkering down together in the Yellow House and sometimes painting side by side, but the bonhomie didn’t last. They argued long and hard about art, an especially tiring business for van Gogh, who complained: “Sometimes we come out of our arguments with our heads as exhausted as a used electric battery”. Later, Gauguin would claim that van Gogh threatened him during several of these arguments; true or not, it is certainly the case that Gauguin had decided to return to Paris by the time the two had a ferocious quarrel on the night of December 23. The argument was so bad that Gauguin hotfooted it off to the local hotel, and when he returned in the morning he was faced by the police. After Gauguin’s exit, a deeply disturbed van Gogh had taken a razor to his ear, severing part of it before presenting the selected slice to a prostitute at the local brothel. Presumably, this was not an especially welcome gift, but in van Gogh’s addled state he may well have forged some sort of connection with bullfighting, where the dead bull’s ears are cut off and given as a prize to the bullfighter. Hours after Gauguin’s return, van Gogh was admitted to hospital, the first of several extended stays before, fearing for his sanity, he committed himself to the asylum of St Rémy in May 1889. Here, the doctor’s initial assessment described him as suffering from “acute mania, with hallucinations of sight and hearing”; van Gogh attributed his parlous state to excessive drinking and smoking, though he gave up neither during his year-long stay.
In May 1890, feeling lonely and homesick, van Gogh discharged himself from St Rémy and headed north to Paris before proceeding to the village of Auvers-sur-Oise. At first, van Gogh’s health improved and he even began to garner critical recognition for his work. However, his twin ogres of depression and loneliness soon returned to haunt him and, in despair, van Gogh shot himself in the chest. This wasn’t, however, the end; he took two days to die, even enduring a police visit when he refused to answer any questions, pronouncing: “I am free to do what I like with my own body”.
The Museum Quarter and the Vondelpark | Museumplein |
Stedelijk Museum
The Stedelijk Museum (reopens 2010; www.stedelijk.nl), just along the street from the Van Gogh Museum, has long been Amsterdam’s number one venue for modern and contemporary art. It’s housed in a big old building, undergoing a complete refurbishment for a scheduled reopening in the spring of 2010. The museum will focus on cutting-edge, temporary exhibitions of modern art – from photography and film through to sculpture and collage – and these will be supplemented by the museum’s large and wide-ranging