Amsterdam

When I knew that I was going to see Mika in Utrecht I was really excited that I'd also finally be able to visit Amsterdam. So for my second day in the Netherlands I got up early and caught the train into the city. The Van Gogh Museum was first, and I knew as soon as I was going to Amsterdam that I really wanted to visit there as Van Gogh has always been one of my favorite artists. I've visited art galleries quite a lot and had seen the odd Van Gogh original before, but I still really wasn't prepared for just how much of an impact this museum would have on me.




“Instead of trying to render exactly what I have before my eyes, I use color in order to express myself forcefully”

I was left feeling so inspired, by both his attitude and his work. Seeing his work in person and identifying the brush strokes he used from the texture is so different to seeing them through a screen or on a print. Even in the seemingly flat colors you can see his short brush strokes which seemed to be painted almost haphazardly. There’s no smoothness to his rendering, and you can distinctly see how he painted around things or he used it to convey the movement. You could even see his background sketches and the pencil guide lines he'd used to help him with perspective (something he struggled with). I'd always known that he'd started his painting career late at 27 and learnt to paint from scratch entirely self taught, but it never dawned on me that his entire painting career spanned only 10 years, and at one point he was creating one full painting a day and I just found his enthusiasm so inspiring!

Seeing so many of his paintings one after the other really allowed me to study his style and ways of working, and I love how his painting is actually fairly simplistic - it’s not about how fabric folds, or getting an exact likeness, but the larger shape of the thing. He often outlines objects which would otherwise look crude, and elements of his style are almost naive which is what I really love about it. Proportions are off and things sometimes look wonky - eyes don’t line up, the legs of a chair bow in different directions, but it’s because it's not what's important, it’s about the color and the feeling rather than a true representation. Even the colors were often not mixed but used straight from a tube, flat colors with tones laid on top using the same paintbrush, wet paint on wet paint to mix the colors together on the canvas. He was also a huge fan of various artists of the time and studied their work for ways to improve his own unabashedly and when starting his career would even directly copy just to learn - something that's so important when learning yet is looked down on so much now.





There were a few Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec artworks as well, reminding me how much I love his work too. The whole trip just made me feel so inspired, and makes me wonder why I don’t study artists more instead of just illustrators. I have a tendency to get very caught up in things looking “right” and looking at Van Gogh’s work made me realize that I shouldn’t. I want my work to evoke a mood and a feeling which is why I restrict my color palettes, but I now see that’s wrong, I’m reducing my art to something formulaic. I get too caught up in ideas of art style having to look “cohesive” which is such a BS modern Instagram thing and I hate it!!! I loved the paintings 'Gauguin's Chair' and 'Cypresses and Two Women' the most, I love the wonky perspective and sense of depth of the chair, and I love all of the swirly shapes in the cypresses, it’s so full of life. I bought some postcards and the museum book so that I can hopefully hold on to how inspired it all made me feel, I've never wanted to pick up a paintbrush as badly as when I left!

I spent way longer than I thought I would looking at everything, the guide I'd read when planning my day reckoned it only took 1-2 hours to look around and I'd taken about 4! So I decided to have lunch at the museum, which ended up being a good choice as it was really nice fresh food and the first proper meal I'd eaten since arriving so I really appreciated it. I then walked the 1.5 miles to the Anne Frank House, which I'm not going to lie I was a bit underwhelmed by.






I don't think it helped that it was so busy, and because it relies on an audio tour everyone is moving through at the exact same pace so there's not enough room to even really see what you're looking at and it felt so claustrophobic with people that it was hard to judge the house itself as it took away from it so much. I spent most my time there feeling like I wanted to get more out of it than I actually did, and feeling like I should be feeling somber and mournful whilst actually feeling a bit grumpy by my lack of personal space and how sore my feet were.

I left the Anne Frank House as it was closing at 6pm, and as it was dark by then and I was so tired I didn't see the point in wandering around, so caught the train back to Utrecht.




I decided to spend my final day in Amsterdam rather than Utrecht now the Mika shows were finished, although I wasn't initially sure what I wanted to do there. I'd Googled for ideas the night before and decided to follow a tour route I'd found on Trip Advisor by myself. I had considered going on a canal tour as I really enjoyed the boat tour I did of New York, but as it rained all day I decided against it!

The walking route took me into the heart of Amsterdam and I finally saw the more touristy parts which I'd mostly avoided until then (not deliberately, it's just how it worked out!), and it ended by the Anne Frank statue which I’d somehow missed when visiting her house. I also popped by Pandora and got a new charm for my bracelet to represent my travel, an adorable little windmill!




The nicest flavor I've ever had, why isn't this available everywhere??


A cute little Russian shop


The charm I got for my travel bracelet


The Anne Frank Statue I kept walking straight past!


And my final view of Amsterdam before catching the train to the airport.
It really was the most perfect trip. I wouldn't hesitate to go back as I'm sure there's so much more to see that I didn't have time to explore.