Van Gogh

At the Rijks Museum, Kees and I went straight through the building, gallery after gallery, from front to back.  At the back door we walked down the steps and there it was!  To the right, almost in the shadow of the big Rijks Museum, was the modern building housing the Van Gogh Museum.  

In his lifetime Vincente Van Gogh sold only one painting.  His family inherited a vast store of masterpieces.  They sold off many, which are scattered in museums throughout the World.  Even Dallas has one.  Finally they gave what was left to their country.  Every year thousands make pilgrimages to Amsterdam just to see the Van Gogh Museum.

Frankly, I was disappointed.  I had seen a wonderful special exhibit of Van Gogh paintings at the Detroit Institute of Arts and a similar show somewhere else.  The collection in the Amsterdam Museum seemed to display mostly small, second tier paintings.

The exception was the big “Hay Wagon in Wheat Fields.”   When I was in college, I spent many hours between classes in a little lounge in the Fine Arts building which had a full-size reproduction of this painting.  I marveled a the range of colors.  It was a thrill to see the “real thing”, a masterpieces. 

Several years later I returned to Amsterdam and repeated my visit to the two museums.  I enjoy going to the same museum time after time, going to see favorite paintings – such as Van Gogh’s Wheat Fields -- just the way I visit old friends. 

When I worked in Chicago, I went to the Art Institute during my lunch hour to listen to gallery talks and to visit the beautiful Monets.  My spirits lifted by the sunny landscapes.  Among my favorites was a row of poplars against a bright blue sky.  .

In Philadelphia I went to the art museum every week to visit the Tyson Collection, a room of wonderful Impressionist paintings, including a Cezanne landscape and one of Van Gogh “Sun Flowers”.  Charles Tyson was president of the company Wally worked for.  I wondered, “How could his family give away these beautiful paintings?”  Then I went to Princeton see paintings loaned to the university by alumni for a special exhibit.  There was a magnificent Cezanne view of Mt. Victoire which the Tyson family had not given to Philadelphia but kept for themselves.  How nice it must be to be rich! 

When I went to Amsterdam again, I went through the Riks Museum, front to back.  Once more I walked out the back door. I stopped short and said, “Whoa!” 

I remembered coming out of the Rijks and walking directly into the front door of the Van Gogh.  While I was away, the Van Gogh Museum had rotated on its axis 180 degrees.  The back of the museum faced the Riks, and I had to walk around the building to get to the entry.

Of course that building had not changed.  My memory was wrong. 

I write about this trip as I remember things.  Is it factual?  I hope so.  But this is just a silly book about a woman and a boy on a journey of discovery.  It does not matter if I can’t remember exactly whether we went to Amsterdam on a Saturday or Sunday.

But there are times when it is important for memory to be exact.  Everyone’s mind is stuffed with memories.  Details become distorted .  Honest men have stood up in court and sworn on the Bible that they remember the face of the man who shot So-and-So.  Their memories played tricks on them, and innocent men were executed. .  .