The Incredible Experience of Immersing oneself in the mesmerising ambience of the world famous Painter Vincent Van Gogh,one of the greatest artist that ever existed

On 20th June,2024 ,We went on our third visit (previous two visits being in Sept.2019 & Aug.2022) to Nuenen village(8 km from Eindhoven city,Netherlands)where one of the greatest artist, that ever existed, lived once upon a time.This is the place where the painter Vincent Van Gogh started his artworks many of which were the ‘masterpieces’ of his paint & brush.Although his life was quite turbulent & he was a troubled soul , his paintings were very beautiful . Personally speaking I am a great admirer of his creations & have got many prints of his framed paintings doning the walls of my living room (at my residence)!His works are so precious that there are occasional ‘Van Gogh exhibitions’ being organised in many cities of the world!Here I am giving a detailed account his personal & professional life for my lovely readers to go through “the incredible experience of immersing oneself” in the amazing masterpieces of the great artist!Happy Reading!

VINCENT VAN GOGH ( March, 1853-July ,1890) was a very famous Dutch painter . His work falls under post-impressionism, an art movement that followed nineteenth-century  impressionism( Post-Impressionism was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction against Impressionists’ concern for the naturalistic depiction of light and colour)! Van Gogh’s influence on Expressionism ,Fauvism and early abstraction was enormous and can be seen in many other aspects of twentieth-century art. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is dedicated to the work of Van Gogh and his contemporaries. In the Kroller-Muller Museum is home to the second largest Van Gogh collection in the world. Van Gogh is considered one of the greatest painters of the 19th century. This recognition came late, however: although he already had some fame in select art circles in the last years of his life, his work was not noticed by the general public until after his death !He posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings , most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes,portraits, and self portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art . He was not commercially successful and, struggling with severe depression and poverty,committed suicide at the age of 37.

Vincent van Gogh, born in the province of Brabant, is one of the most famous artists who ever existed. If you wish to admire Van Gogh’s works, you really must visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. But there are other special places that you really should visit if you are a Van Gogh lover! In the beautiful National Park De Hoge Veluwe lies the Kröller-Müller Museum, with the second largest Van Gogh collection in the world! And in Brabant, the region where he was born, you can still visit unique locations that were instrumental in shaping his life and work. These are highlights you simply cannot afford to miss! To truly understand Vincent van Gogh, it’s essential to look beyond the canvas. Step out into the Dutch countryside, villages and cities that influenced his life and work. In the south of Holland,the quaint village of Nuenen is an essntial stop. Van Gogh moved here in 1883 to live with his parents, shortly before moving to France, and it was here he produced monumental paintings like ‘The Potato Eaters’ (1885). Today, the Van Gogh Village Nuenen is dedicated to his artistic endeavors and offers a memorable audio-visual experience. In his birthplace of Zundert, the Vincent Van Gogh House invites you to learn more about the artist’s early life, while in nearby Tilburg, you can experience where the 13 year old boy took his first drawing classes. The Noordbranbant Museum is another impressive art institution to show his work in dedicated exhibition spaces. To best experience the natural and artistic charms of North Brabant,explore Van Goghs Holland by bike, taking the time to experience the landscapes and villages that helped shape the artist’s inimitable view of the world.

 Van Gogh Museum (in Amsterdam) 

Its a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent Van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam south, close to the Stedelijk museum, the Rijksmuseum & the Conertgebouw.The museum opened on 2 June 1973,and its buildings were designed by Gerrit Rietveld & Kisho Kurokawa. The museum contains the largest collection of Van Gogh’s paintings and drawings in the world. In 2017, the museum had 2.3 million visitors and was the most visited museum in Netherlands, and the 23 most visited art museum in the world. In 2019, the Van Gogh Museum launched the Meet Vincent Van Gogh Experience, a technology-driven “immersive exhibition” on Van Gogh’s life and works, which has toured globally.

THE VINCENTER:(VINCENT Van Gogh Museum in Nuenen village near Eindhoven)  is a Dutch museum in the North Brabant town of Nuenen with documentation about the residence of the painter Vincent Van Gogh. The museum is located in the former town hall of Nuenen from 1874. Vincentre was opened on 18 July 2010. The permanent exhibition of the museum tells the story of Vincent van Gogh and Nuenen using audiovisual techniques. Van Gogh stayed here from 1883 to 1885 and realized an important part of his oeuvre during this period. This includes reproductions of paintings of the landscapes and churches, as captured by Vincent in Nuenen. The Potato Eaters  is an oil painting painted by him in April 1885 in Nuenen! It is in the Van Gogh Museum  in Amsterdam. The original oil sketch of the painting is at the Kroller -Muller museum in Otterlo, and he also made Lithographs of the image, which are held in collections including the Musem of Modern Art in New York City. The painting is considered to be one of Van Gogh’s masterpieces & is a subject of multimedia presentation!

What is on view in Salon Nune Ville?

1)Ancestral home of Margot Begemann (lover of Vincent van Gogh).

2)19th century art salon with paintings of fellow painters of Vincent van Gogh.

3)19th century attic with a fully furnished servant room, and the room where a Jewish boy went into hiding during the Second World War.

4)Fully Furnished 19th-century rooms.

This house was built in 1874, following 18th century style for Reverend W.L. Begemann.

It is located next to the parental house of the artist Vincent van Gogh, who lived and worked in Nuenen from December 1883 until November 1885. Reverend Begemann and his family moved in. He and his wife soon died, however their three unmarried daughters kept living in the house including Margot, Vincent van Gogh’s later beloved. The house served as Reformed Parsonage from 1926 until 1954. Then the house was acquired by the Van Gogh family, who restored it, and so Nune Ville remained a historically valuable monument. It is now a private residence but on certain days partly on view. Every saturday afternoon open. Address: Berg 24, 5671 CC, Nuenen Village

VAN GOGH BRABANT :

 Kröller-Müller Museum :

The Kröller-Müller Museum is a Dutch museum for modern and contemporary art , located in the De Hoge Veluwe National park in Otterlo . The museum and its associated sculpture park, together approximately 25 hectares, are internationally renowned. Until 2020, the museum attracted increasing numbers of visitors from home and abroad every year, with 405,428 visitors in 2019. The museum is characterized by an extensive collection of works by Vincent Van Gogh .

History :

The museum is named after Helene Kroller-Muller, who assembled a large part of the collection, advised by art educator HP Beeder . It was officially opened as a national museum in 1939, a few years after the foundation of the National Park. After the government decided to make the museum, like all other state museums, independent & the name Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller was dropped, the statutory name of the museum became the Kröller-Müller Museum Foundation. The museum received ANBI status. 

The collection:

Since her first purchase of the painting He comes from far away by Paul Gabriel in 1908 , Helene Kröller-Müller had built up a collection of paintings that, unlike collections of her contemporaries, concerned modern works. Because Kröller-Müller had to undergo a serious operation in 1911, which she assumed she would not survive, she decided that her collection should be left to the Dutch people. However, when she survived the operation, she had various architects, such as Ludwig Mies,Peter Behrens & Hendrik Berlage , draw up plans for the construction of a museum, the Groote Museum, to house all her works of art.

The Groote Museum 

The Groote Museum was commissioned by the Kröllers, initially (in 1918) by Berlage, who also designed the hunting lodge on the family estate. However, relations with Berlage deteriorated, after which the Belgian architect Henry Van de Velde was employed in 1920. In 1921, construction of his design, the Groote Museum, started at the foot of the Franse Berg in Hoenderloo. The Maulbronner sandstone required for this was delivered by rail. Due to financial headwinds, the construction of the museum was halted. In the meantime, the Kröller-Müller Foundation, founded in 1928, organized exhibitions at Lange Voorhout 1 in The Hague, including exhibitions by Issac Israels. Because Kröller’s company was doing worse, the government was asked to help finance the Groote Museum. On April 26, 1935, the foundation donated the art collection to the government, which in return promised to help realize the museum building. The De Hoge Veluwe National Park was also founded on the family estate, also with government support.

FAMOUS PAINTINGS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH :

‘I dream my painting & then I paint my dream’

Vincent to his brother Theo, September 1888

STARRY NIGHTS :

The Starry Night is an oil-on-canvas modern art painting by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an imaginary village !It has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of modern art in New York City since 1941, acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest. Widely regarded as Van Gogh’s magnus opus, The Starry Night is one of the most recognizable paintings in Western art.

MEET VINCENT VAN GOGH EXPERIENCE : TAKE AN UNFORGETTABLE JOURNEY TO THE WORLD OF VINCENT VAN GOGH AT THE VAN GOGH MUSEUM ,AMSTERDAM.

Educational value :

The interactive approach of Meet Vincent van Gogh appeals to families and schools as primary target groups. The Meet Vincent audio tour tells Vincent’s story at two levels: from 8 to 12 years and 13+ years. The texts are based on Vincent’s unique collection of personal letters from the Van Gogh Museum. The audio tour consists of interactive stops and a scavenger hunt for children and turns a visit into an exciting hands-on digital learning experience. The Meet Vincent van Gogh Experience has had successful editions in European and Asian markets.

Meet Vincent’s innovative techniques and storytelling are aimed at:

• Families looking for a cultural experience for both parents and children;
• Digital nomads looking for innovative ways to experience art;
• Tourists with an interest in cultural and retail-based excursions;
• Lay people and art experts;
• School groups with a focus on art, art history or science.

CHILDREN GET TO WORK THEMSELVES & USE THE SAME MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUE AS THE PAINTER VINCENT VAN GOGH USED THEN

Note :I am indebted to the Wikkipedia for the invaluable information on the subject