Waiting for Van Gogh

This morning it was sprinkling rain. It was sprinkling rain yesterday morning and ended up quite a lovely day. But today God decided to hurl His wrath on us for some sin or other and it became arctic cold, with a ceaselessly bucketing downpour and an umbrella inverting wind. This we discovered when we arrived in Amsterdam for the day.
Accommodating to the weather situation, I decided it would be a great idea to explore the great indoors of Amsterdam’s museums so we grabbed the canal boat bus to the museum quarter. The windows of the boat completely fogged up making the pre-recorded sightseeing commentary futile. The Van Gogh Museum was my number one so we decided to pass the Rijksmeuseum and come back to it later*. We kind of ignored the procession of barely moving people under umbrellas outside the Rijks and joined the end of a completely unsheltered queue somewhere in the general geographic area of the Van Gogh museum. The weather worsened. We huddled under a shared umbrella. At 10 minutes the line had moved 7 metres. Maybe this queue could take 40 minutes but we were up to it, despite the rain. And the cold. And the wind. At 30 minutes we rounded the first bend and the cold started to get to us. Sean’s jacket was thought to be waterproof. It turns out it wasn’t. I deeply regretted not wearing thermal underwear. At 45 minutes, we had a discussion – to bail or not to bail. Sean did a reconnaissance mission to find the front end of the queue which we couldn’t actually see at that point. He was gone a long time. When he came back he didn’t say much. He wanted me to go and see for myself. I couldn’t face it. I knew it was bad. But I didn’t want to be weak and quit. The rest of the queue, although drenched and shivering had been so stoic – why couldn’t we? I looked at the girl in front of me in skinny jeans and thongs on her feet and pink chipped toenail polish. She must be cold and she didn’t look like an art lover and yet she endured. I was intrigued. Her boyfriend looked in pain but he did not protest. At one hour Sean stopped talking to me. There were times I nearly folded but every time I almost lost my resolve, the line shuffled forward 2 metres and I regained hope. At 1 hour 15 minutes we were in physical pain, Sean was wet through. I felt a little bit guilty to put him through this. We had rounded the second bend and the end was in sight (if I stood on my toes). There was no giving up now. An hour 30 minutes and I wanted to cry. The girl in the thongs with the pink nail polish and her boyfriend were gone. They didn’t make it. I don’t know when or how. One hour and 40 minutes, so close and I could see they were only letting 5 or so people in at once. It was cruel. At 1 hour 50 minutes the gate keeper admitted us. I hated him but didn’t have the energy to kill him – I just wanted to get inside and get warm.
Sean was soaked to the skin and I offered to buy him a dry t-shirt from the museum shop but he refused. I tried.
In contrast to the queuing, the actual museum was excellent. We saw Van Gogh’s most famous paintings including Sunflowers, Irises and The Potato Eaters (I don’t like this one – too dark and muddy). My favourites were his self portraits and the orchards and wheat fields he painted while in Arles, the south of France and also his work from his time while at the asylum in Saint Remy. Sean liked the drama of Wheatfield with Crows which he painted 3 weeks before his death. There were also works by his friend Gauguin and others including Monet, Manet, Pissaro and Picasso. Vincent’s brother Theo was a Paris art dealer and owned Vincent’s works (Vincent gave him his work in exchange for financial support). Theo also owned works by many of Vincent Van Gogh’s contemporaries and so it is Theo’s collection which makes up most of the museum’s collection but there are also more recently acquired works. One interesting portrait of Van Gogh was by an Australian John Peter Russell who became acquainted with Van Gogh in Paris. Van Gogh placed importance on this painting - while he was at the asylum in Saint Remy he wrote to Theo his brother and asked him to take good care of it.
Van Gogh never sold any of his work during his life even though he had a small following of admirers at the end. He probably would have freaked out if he knew about all the crazy people who line up for nearly two hours in the cold and rain to see his work. I don’t think he would have liked the attention.
The lesson learnt for visiting European masterpieces in museums: Don't underestimate the queues, arrive early, wear weatherproof clothing,go on a weekday.
*it didn’t happen