The crowd stands in front of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and in front of Vermer's “Kitchen Maid”. These are the most famous art pieces, so we all want to see them. I have to admit that Van Goghs’ less famous Pink Peach blossom, painted for the birth of his nephew is one of my favorites. The Japanese feel of the pink and white blossom on the pastel blue background is very soothing to me.
The Rijks museum was friendly enough with Lots of Rembrandt, a few Vermer's including the special Kitchen Maid (maid pouring the milk), and woman with Balance. So distinct is the mood, the lighting and the background of his work. I got to reflect on the difference between this and the work of Richard Avedon, the fashion and portraits, the clean backgrounds and the placement of the figure in the space.
Van Gogh museum is pretty big with a whole new modern building hosting a special show of his work by night. Reading about him and seeing his work closely I feel like I know Van Gogh personally and realize that he died at my current age…I reflect on the art work that I created over the years, the styles and periods I went through, creating a little retrospective in my mind, and to my surprise I could fill up all of the walls here and more.
After spending the day at museums, I return home for a snack and head out with a camera. I no longer have an urge to document Amsterdam or any of its sites. I enjoy the freedom of walking with no backpack. Now as the time is getting close to sunset, I wonder the streets with the Canon camera strap hanging over my neck, many layers of thin shirts on, my green jacket with the large and cool looking collar, and a feeling of being an artist again. As I look into the canal I see the reflections of the canal houses dancing, shifting shape and form. Am I seeing the canal houses, the water or a new reality of the houses?
It is like the Big Sur Ocean that I viewed every day at Esalen. Once it was completely crisp, dark and rich blue, with clear definitions, another time it was dark grey and misty with strong waves and lots of movement. Still again it appeared calm with a greener tone, lighter and by night of course it appeared more like a black canvas, like a mirror offering the reflection of the moon or a star, mostly Venus. At sunrise or in the summer it was like a new Ocean all together. Was I changing or was it the ocean. Was it the same ocean, or was it just at the same place. Knowing that I was not changing glasses daily, I accepted that what I might think I know, what I can easily place in a box called the pacific, is relative and in flux, and day by day I delight in its new face.
At home I am happy to find the story of Amsterdam revealed to me in the abstractions of the shapes of homes and windows dancing on the canal waters as I captured them in my camera.
On my last day here I went to visit the Anna Frank House. A different kind of museum, a place where it is mostly my imagination and astonishment at human kind that makes the visit worthwhile. Really there is not much about the museum, but so much more of where my mind goes when triggered by human history. When standing in a seemingly normal room, a film of what happened in this very spot runs now in faded colors, with almost no sound through my imagination super imposed on the walls and space I stand in, merging times into one, knowing that these walls witnessed it all. Could this wall be the same for me as it were for Anna Frank? Do the walls care about the stories they hold? Do the floors notice the feet of the millions of tourists standing on the same wood that German soldiers did? I walk out to a drizzle, go home and pack my stuff. Catch a tram to the central station, on my way to Dublin.
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