Rijksmuseum

I was hesitant to visit this museum, but since we had a rainy day to spare and many friends suggested we visit, we decided that we should take in a bit of culture.

I was pleasantly surprised – they had two types of audio tours (one more historical and one more art oriented) – I went with the art tour and loved the historian that talked about his favorite pieces. The pieces that stand out in my mind are the Delft ceramics, doll houses, and of course Rembrandt’s Nightwatch.

Ditto to what foxinthesnow said, although when I compared what I saw to what my mum saw before the renovations, I don’t think we missed much.

I thought it was interesting to hear about colonial history from the Dutch point of view for a change (having studied Indonesian history and been to Indonesia a few times, and hearing their point of view). It seems everywhere you go they think their country is great and could do no wrong. Incidentally, the tropenmuseum had a fantastic display of Indonesian art and history (also from the dutch p.o.v.)

I decided after going here and then the Van Gogh museum that I am a much bigger fan of Van Gogh than Rembrandt, but it was still good. My favourite part of the Rijksmuseum is actually the building it is housed in, and the view of it from the river.

The Nightwatchmen was definetely worth seeing.

Rembrandt. Priceless paintings. Dutch masters. Large scale. Definitely worth visiting.

...but by no means just that. My knowledge of Dutch painting and history around that era is somewhat scattershot, so anything I can read to learn more about it is always welcome, and such was the case here. There are many conventionally beautiful paintings to see, but I’m still haunted by a vivid, morbid and downright grotesque painting I saw that featured the corpses of two brothers who were lynched for their political failures sometime in the 1600s. I will spare you the details, but the sense was that it was painted from the life, and the atmosphere of horror in the night was palpable.