Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam (28-12-2005)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

There are quite a few reasons NOT to visit this museum especially during the holiday season: it's always crowded with tourists, you have to wait in line three times (tickets, cloakroom and the newest addition: a metal detector), the front building is extremely ugly and I have seen every single Van Gogh painting here several times by now.
Luckily there are also many reasons to still visit this museum: they have a big new additional building at the back which is pretty, there are always interesting exhibitions there that aren't very crowded and I get to go in for free anyway ;-)

The special exhibit we wanted to see was about animals in paintings (Fierce Friends / Beestachtig Mooi). The Van Gogh Museum specializes in art from 18th/19th and early 20th century so all special exhibitions usually are about this time or include many works from that time.
There were some nice paintings and other pieces of art (which ofcourse they did not have on any cards in the shops) and the stories behind all the objects were pretty interesting. The exhibit also included several stuffed animals and some fossils. ;-D
Some of the highlights included the glass water creatures (snail, jellyfish) from Bohemia, Van Gogh's own paintings of animals (crabs, a bat!, crows) and the paintings of freaky animals (two headed calf etc).

Ofcourse we could not leave without taking a quick look at Van Gogh's paintings upstairs as well. As I had thought this part was much more crowded but we could still take a look at some of the prettier paintings there. On one of the top floors there's also an drawing cabinet and I was very happy to see some of William Blake's art there.

After a visit to the shop it was time again to leave and as I had seen a poffertjes-sign near the museum we went there to eat some ;-D