David's Diary: Tuesday, September 4, 2001

Amsterdam

When visiting the Netherlands it is almost impossible to miss Amsterdam. We set aside three days to see this interesting city of history, canals, and museums. It was only a short drive from the south before we were at our hotel and a tram ride away from the center of the city.

Van Gogh Museum

Our first stop was the Van Gogh museum. Van Gogh lived a short life (born 1853 and died 1890), but produced a remarkable number of paintings (mostly during the last ten years of his life). Van Gogh hated to be separated from his paintings, so he gave most of them to his brother Theo, who was an art dealer that did much to support his older brother.

The museum is organized chronologically. We rented audio guides to provide us with more background on Van Gogh, but Kevin and Allen quickly became bored with the commentary. I walked the boys around the entire gallery and asked them to stop at paintings they liked. There were few children in the museum, which we think is disappointing, as anyone, young or old, should be able to view and appreciate the paintings, even if they do not understand all of the details of what Van Gogh was thinking when he painted them. Our favorite was Wheatfields with a lark (painted in 1887), with Allen easily commenting on which way the wind was coming from by just looking at the stocks of wheat in the painting. How lucky we are to go as a family and enjoy one of the best-known painters in the world.