I was lucky enough to visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in November of last year. The museum was located in somewhat of a museum park. The Rijks museum and the Stedelijk Museum are located on the same block. A beautiful landscape of ponds and trees are centered around them. The Van Gogh Museum has an audio tour available in all languages via a handheld tour guide. Unfortunately, funds limited me to get the audio tour, but I was able to nonchalantly follow a British couple around most of the five floors. The museum chronologically directes you through a collection of Van Gogh's and his contemporery's works.The first painting that I wish to discuss is Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette. This is of course done by Vincent Van Gogh. It is an oil painting done in 1886 and fyi is 32 X 24.5 cm. (who new they had the metric system even back then). This is one of Van Gogh's earlier woks. It is thought to have been done while he was at an art academy in Antwerp, Belgium. The painting is done with thick hard brush strokes. For the most part it is an achromatic painting. It does not seem to be to concerned with anatomical accuracy of the human skeleton. The image is however unmistakable a skeleton smoking a cigarette. I'm not sure what the intent or message of Mr. Van Gogh was, but a conection could easily be made between the antismoking ads of today. I prefer to ignore that conection. I chose to write about this piece solely on the subject matter. It is haunting and was right in line with my current mindset in Amsterdam. Another piece that sparked my interest is called The Courtesan (after Eisen). It is another oil painting and was done in 1887 in Paris. Again the subject matter is the reason I am writing about this piece. I had never seen any eastern style art done by Van Gogh. While viewing it in the museum that was my first impression. I then thought that possibly his expressive brush strokes could be seen as similar to that of ...
