European Tour Day 12: Amsterdam – painting and thought
Day 12. March 13.
I spent a much needed peaceful morning in my hotel room getting reorganized, which I very much appreciated. I had breakfast in the hotel, which I thought was free until I went to check out and found I spent the equivalent of $20 US. I found myself angry for about 4 minutes that they didn’t make it clear, then 1 minute of anger at myself for not checking first, then I decided I didn’t want to waste my experience like that, and then it was over.
I then went to probably the best art museum I’ve ever been to. Normally I would stay away from museums because having a short time in a city I’d rather be outside, but I was in the land of Rembrandt and Van Gogh, probably my two favorite artists, so I couldn’t not go.
First the Rijksmuseum, where I saw Rembrandt’s incredible self-portrait with golden turban. The light he got in his paintings was absolutely astonishing. But perhaps even more special, if it’s even possible, was Vermeer’s The Milkmaid, which has always been one of my favorite paintings. The detail, the realism like a photograph. Incredible!
Seeing these and other masters’ originals truly moved me. So many astonishingly great paintings by so many great artists.
Then it was onto the Van Gogh museum. Again I was moved. Nobody has ever had greater expression in their paintings. And close up his inch-long brush-strokes or pallet knife-strokes one after another filling the space with such feeling. I was overwhelmed.
And I had the thought that a blank canvas, with paints, brushes and pallet knives, has unlimited potential built within it—to be anything. It’s like blank consciousness and then we put thought into it. We can create anything, and then we get to experience what we created as a painting. But like oil paints, even in the next moment we can re-create it.
It was really a great day, just hanging out with myself, and today I was good company. Then I had some really good Indonesian food, and before I knew it I’m on the night train to Odense, Denmark in a tiny little sleeping compartment shared by 6 beds.
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