My Favorite Paintings at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam hosted numerous paintings by the great modern Dutch master, Vincent Van Gogh, from iconic ones to the somewhat lesser known though not minor ones.  After some difficult dideliberation, I chose below two paintings as my favorites.

The first one, Wheatfield with Crow, was a well known one, if not universally loves as his Irises or Starry Night. This painting, painted near the end of Van Gogh's life, was a pictorial cry of unmitigatable despair and looming doom, albeit an astonishingly beautiful one.  This visionary work reflected a tortured mind at the brink of collapse, and cracked open a door toward a dark world most of us could only project but not able to imagine and endure.  It was startling and one could practically hear the wailing of the crows filling up the dense blue sky.

Van Gogh, despite or because of his misery, weaved a magic spell with intense and strongly contrasted, thickly applied paints, in wavy and parallel brushstrokes, and it was really the trembling of his own sense and soul we discern.


Korenveld met kraaien, Wheatfield with Crow, Vincent van Gogh (1890) 
Oil on Canvas, 50.5 x 103 cm, 
Photo courtesy by Pachango on Flickr

The second work I cite below was a very tranquil one, comparing to the one above, with a serene and translucent beauty.


Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, 1888 Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) 
Oil on Canvas, 65 x 81.5 cm, 
Photo courtesy by Pachango on Flickr

This painting was painted during his stay in Arles, France, not far from the Mediterranean, after his visiting of the fishing village of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in June 1888.  He captured something fragile which was deeply personal.  The color scheme was less brilliant than usual, and the brush strokes more continuous and less nervous.  The pale blue sea and beige sand gave this oil painting a look of more delicate pastel painting.  Yet, it was not a weak one.  There were bold strokes, manifested by the strongly outlined boats and their saturate colors, small patches but intense.  More over, the sky was painted with little strokes which invoked some uncertainty, some fearful anticipation, perhaps, an approaching storm.



My Favorite Museum Collection Series

>> My Favorite Museum Collection Series 52: My Favorite Paintings at Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, Netherlands  
<< My Favorite Museum Collection Series 50:  My Favorite Paintings at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited