Amsterdam: The Museums, a guide?

This will be a rather brief (as brief as I can make it) summary of a trip I took with one of my art history classes (Genre Painting, heavy emphasis on Dutch painting) to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The trip was a lot of fun, especially because, as one of three Americans (and the only one to stay the whole trip), I was forced to make friends with Irish students. By Saturday I had been adopted into the group and was being taught (possibly futilely) to speak with an Irish accent and various slang terms. It was quite the experience, filled with much laughter, and one somehow appropriate to the pub location.

The city itself was AMAZING! I had never been before, so it was all new to me. You could tell that it was the holiday season because the whole city already had its Christmas lights up. Most small side streets were lined with lights, even the notorious Red Light District had its own lights (red lights with a big 'W' in the middle, de Wallen is the name of that area in Dutch).

The purpose of the trip was to look at art, of course, so most of our trip was spent going to the Museum District of the city by tram. We went twice to the Rijksmuseum (if you should ever think of going there, make it a whole day trip because it's the most expensive museum in that area and they don't let you back in even with a ticket from that day once you leave), and while the museum was laid out in a thought-provoking and well-planned manner, most of the building is under restoration, meaning that only a small part of their collection is out for viewing. This makes the amount you pay to get in even more ridiculous because you don't even get to see everything. Wait until 2013 to go back, when the whole thing will be done, because it will be amazing, since this building is enormous.

The Historical Museum had an interesting exhibit on the history of men's fashion from the beginning of the Republic to modern day in Amsterdam. The waist coats and hats were cool, and I would have spent more time looking at it had a large group of fashion design students not been occupying the entire floor area.

We also went to the Van Gogh museum which had a moving exhibit called "Illusions of Reality" that focused on various medias illustration of people's lives during the 1800s, especially the period of Van Gogh's life. The purpose was to show what might have influenced his style and subject choices. This applies mostly to his first phase of painting.

However, the Stedelijk Museum (their modern art museum) was by far the best museum of them all. The building is apparently just their temporary location, which explains the numerous empty rooms. I just walked through and would comment on the white color of choice in the room, debating if it was ivory, egg shell, etc. The rooms that were occupied more than made up for those rooms, though. My two favorite rooms were the one covered floor to ceiling in giant black and white quotes and the one in which my height was marked on a wall. They were even on the floor! And we were allowed to take pictures of everything, so it was just a wonderland for all of the girls in this group.
The other room was a work in progress, and pretty much every visitor who comes in picks a place along the wall for their height to be marked and then labeled with their name and date. It certainly showed me how very average my height is.


I also visited Amsterdam's Cat Museum, which was very fab. It was all art inspired by cats, and then real cats who lived there. I ended up sitting on a couch and petting one cat for a good 15-20 minutes. Worth going to if you are a cat lover, though it is off the beaten path.

That basically sums up my museum trip of Amsterdam. In Haarlem (a most adorable town, one I highly recommend), we went to the Frans Hals museum which was rather, eh. It was well laid out, but not my preferred style so I was not blown away.

(For more pictures, look to Facebook. Either friend me or grab someone who is friends with me to look at them. Erika is always a good choice :) )

Amadea