Amsterdam

Dutch master

A visitors snaps Rembrandt’s ‘The Milkmaid’ in the Rijksmuseum.

In a country with more art activity per capita than any other in the world, Amsterdam leads the way. Explaining why the city puts substantial resources into marketing itself as an art capital, a former Deputy Mayor said: “It’s an investment not only in visitors, but also in the quality of life. You don’t concentrate on the cost, but on the benefits. Amsterdam floats on arts and culture.”

Even cows have their own museum in Amsterdam.

Conveniently, the “big three” Amsterdam art museums are clustered within a few hundred metres of one another on ‘Museumplein’ (Museum Square).

The Rijksmuseum (Imperial Museum) is one of the world’s great national treasure-troves and worth a whole day, if you have the time. No fewer than 80 halls house 8,000 items displaying 800 years of Dutch art and history. It is especially renowned for its collection of 17th century Dutch masters.

Many art-lovers head straight for the second floor, where the “Wow!” factor stops them in their tracks upon entering the magnificent Gallery of Honour. At the far end of a wide avenue lined with display alcoves hangs the museum’s centrepiece artwork, Rembrandt’s giant painting The Night Watch (1642), lording it over the crowd constantly clustered in front of it.

The artist’s most famous and monumental painting, it depicts an Amsterdam militia. Taking nine kilos of paint to complete, it hung at one time in the Amsterdam Town Hall. Before that, it was even bigger, but because it did not fit in the intended place, a section was trimmed off! The Rijksmuseum possesses the largest collection of Rembrandt paintings in the world.

Among the other countless highlights are Gerrit Rietveld’s Red and Blue Chair (an icon of the De Stijl design movement), Delftware, Johannes Vermeer’s The Milkmaid, Meissen porcelain, a Van Gogh self-portrait and an eternally evocative winter scene by Hendrick Avercamp.

Across the park, the Van Gogh Museum is home to the world’s largest collection of Vincent’s work, from his brooding, early palette depicting Dutch peasant life to the explosion of colour in his Provence works of the late 1880s.

They’re all here: The Yellow House in Arles that he briefly shared with Paul Gauguin, The Bedroom he occupied there, the Sunflowers which decorated it and the brutally honest self-portraits, including with bandaged ear after a particularly psychotic episode when he mutilated himself.

Literally next door, and completing the trio of powerhouse art institutions in the ‘Museumkwartier’, is the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, which houses over 100,000 contemporary works, including paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, graphic design, applied arts and new media. All the major modern movements are represented, from Minimalism, German Expressionism and Bauhaus to Impressionism, Abstract Art, Conceptualism and Pop Art. 

Visitors admire a monumental work by Anselm Kiefer in the Stedelijk Museum.

There are works by many stellar names, including Mondrian, Warhol, Chagall, Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, Braque, Kokoschka, Pollock, Ernst and many more. A lower level hosts special exhibitions by world-leading artists.

Dating back to 1895, the Stedelijk has been held dear in the hearts of Amsterdamers for generations as both an art gallery and a meeting place. A 2012 extension opened by Queen Beatrix on national TV resembles a giant, upturned sink and is inevitably known by locals as “the bathtub”.

A newcomer to Museumplein, in the historic Villa Alsberg, is the MOCO Museum, which has a collection of modern (‘Mo’) and contemporary (‘co’) art, including works by celebrated artists such as Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Tracey Emin, Marina Ambramovic and many more alongside rising stars. A lower floor is dedicated to digital and immersive art, There are also branches in Barcelona and London.

Andres Reisinger’s ‘Fly’ in the Moco Museum

For a closer insight into Rembrandt’s life in Amsterdam (he moved there from his home town of Leiden in search of fame and fortune), head for the Rembrandt House, where he lived and worked between 1639 and 1658. It is the only building which still survives from the 17th century which Rembrandt actually occupied and the only place where visitors can truly get a sense of how the man lived and worked. With a 17th contemporary inventory as a guide, the house has been meticulously refurbished with furniture, art and objects from the period, including a virtually complete collection of Rembrandt’s etchings.

Demonstrations of etching and paint preparation show how Rembrandt and his apprentices worked (you can stand in the very studio where the great man painted), and visitors can try their hand at their own etchings. A modern extension shows changing exhibitions of works by Rembrandt’s contemporaries and pupils and by living artists inspired by him.

The house is as close as you can get to Rembrandt the man. You can’t even visit his grave. He was declared bankrupt in 1656, brought down by a drop in commissions (his style having gone out of fashion), a tangled love life which required him to pay the equivalent of alimony and an insatiable appetite for buying exotic collectables, many of which are on display. (A stuffed armadillo, anyone?) He was buried in a pauper’s grave and twenty years later, as was the custom, his remains were dug up and disposed of in an unmarked mass grave.

A lighter, but still entertaining experience of the master can be had at Rembrandt’s Amsterdam, where his final home and studio, where he produced his last works, are recreated with the use of video projections, animated paintings, special effects and a supposed dialogue between Rembrandt and family members.

Rembrandt’s Amsterdam

If it were in the city centre, the Museum Cobra would be one of the most popular attractions with art-lovers. As it is, located in the southern suburb of Amstelveen, it is missed by most visitors, even though there is a frequent bus service.

Museum Cobra

Famed for their primitive, spontaneous expression and range of materials, CoBrA artists are showcased in the world’s only museum dedicated to the avant-garde movement, which was active mainly between 1948 and 1951. It takes its name from the first initials of Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, the three cities from which its main proponents hailed.

Photography fans have two delights in store a short distance apart on the elegant Keizersgracht (Emperor’s Canal). Occupying two connecting houses, each hosting special exhibitions, Huis Marseille was the first photography museum established in the Netherlands. A former merchant’s house, it was named after the city where the original owner attained much of his wealth. Some of the period rooms have retained their original ceiling frescoes and there are lovely canal views from the upper floors. A charming ‘hidden garden’ completes the visit.

Foam presents exhibitions of various photographic genres, such as documentary, art and fashion by both well known and up and coming photographers. Notable shows have included retrospectives on Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton. The museum also publishes the quarterly Foam Magazine.

Across from Foam, the Museum van Loon is the finest of Amsterdam’s grand canal houses open to the public. Built in 1672, the house’s first resident was the painter Ferdinand Bol, Rembrandt’s most famous pupil.

For over 400 years the Van Loon family has been closely linked to the history of Amsterdam as merchants and bankers. Willem van Loon was a co-founder of the mighty Dutch East India Company and his grandson became the city’s mayor. In the early 19th century the family was raised to nobility, purchasing the house in 1884. While the interior had been changed to introduce the Louis XV style, the original facade remains intact.

The magnificent hallway, with its marble floor, stucco work and monumental staircase with Rococo-style brass banister (unique in the Netherlands) is unusually grand, while upstairs visitors can wander through the Blue Drawing Room, where Queen Wilhelmina’s lady in waiting Thora van Loon would receive guests, the Dining Room, which the family uses for special occasions (they still occupy the upper floors), the Red Drawing Room, where gentlemen would retire for business meetings, and other rooms, most of which reach to over five metres in height. Throughout the house, the walls are hung with portraits showing the family lineage. 

Previously an outpost of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg (it severed its ties with the Russian institution after the invasion of Ukraine), the H’Art Museum is located in a grand, 17th century building on the River Amstel which previously operated as a retirement home.

The museum’s rotating shows are often presented in partnership with world-leading institutions such as the Smithsonian Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the British Museum in London and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. It is also the temporary home of the Amsterdam Museum, including its collection of historical paintings, and is the only Dutch museum with so called ‘outsider’ art, created by self-taught artists working outside the mainstream and who often have learning difficulties or mental health issues.

You can also catch temporary art exhibitions in two of Amsterdam’s most atmospheric churches. Dating from 1306, the Oude Kerk (Old Church) is the city’s oldest building. In keeping with its centuries-long patronage of art, craft and music, since 2012 contemporary artists have been invited to create site-specific works which add a fascinating element to the historical setting.

Oude Kerk (Old Church)

Permanent features include Italian artist Giorgio Andreotta Calo’s 1979 stained glass window in the Holy Sepulchre Chapel, interior paintings of the church by Emanuel de Witte (1617-1692), depicting it as a bustling centre of local life, and the Mirror Room., with its hand-painted 18th century wallpaper. In its time as the marriage commissioner’s office it saw countless couples sign their certificates, including Rembrandt and Saskia Uylenburgh. The church was built on a cemetery, and the floor consists entirely of gravestones. There are 10,000 souls under your feet, Saskia among them.

Dedicated in 1409, the Nieuwe Kerk (it’s over a century ‘younger’ than the Oude Kerk, so it’s the New Church!) on Dam Square hosts exhibitions of art, photography and culture, including the annual World Press Photo Exhibition.

Just across the ‘Museumbrug’ (Museum Bridge) opposite the Rijksmuseum is the Spiegelkwartier, which has been the heart of Holland’s art and antique trade since around 1900. With Nieuwe Spiegelstraat as its spine (‘spiegel’ is Dutch for mirror, although the street is named after a former mayor), the area boasts around 70 galleries and antique dealers.

Three unique museums are located on the other side of the IJ (pronounced ‘eye’), the body of water on the northern edge of the city, which can be crossed in five minutes by the free commuter ferry from behind Central Station.

Overlooking the busy waterway, the eye-popping Eye Film Museum is dedicated to the so-called ‘seventh art’ (after painting, architecture, sculpture, literature, music and performance). The permanent exhibition What is Film? traces the development of the moving image from its earliest days to the digital present, accompanied by a series of special exhibitions. 

Eye Film Museum

There are some fun interactive exhibits, including a Green Screen where you can digitally place yourself in front of a film backdrop (and email the resulting image), a chance to make your own flipbook or animated film and room surrounded by hundreds of moving images which you can change by category such as crowd scenes, traffic or landscapes. Bonus: Panoramic views of passing vessels from the windows of the cafe-restaurant, where the ceiling lamps were designed by the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. 

Nxt Museum is the first fine art institution in the Netherlands dedicated to art and technology, linking artists, musicians and scientists to combine academic research with creative ideas. An ongoing exhibition immerses visitors in the art of “processing”, whereby machine algorithms interact with human perception, challenging visitors to reconsider how they see the world around them and reflect on how technology is reshaping our sensory experiences.

Nxt Museum

Step into a world where AI-generated visuals, advanced image-processing technologies and large scale light and sound installations blur the boundaries between the visible and the unseen, from revealing colours beyond human vision to exploring how sound shapes spatial environments. It’s art, Jim, but not as we know it.

Located in the vast warehouse of a former shipyard, Straat is the museum for street art and graffiti. What began in the 1960s in the New York subway system has become arguably the biggest art movement in the world, with all kinds of international subgenres and categories.

Straat has over 160 works by 150 international artists, all of them specially commissioned for the museum and created on site, the first time any of the artists have worked on canvas. Together they represent the diversity of the worldwide street art movement under one roof.

The museum is laid out like a city, with streets, squares and intersections enabling visitors to take a street art tour around the world. The industrial setting and bare brick walls provide an ideal environment. An indoor panorama deck offers a great view over the displays.

The Fabrique des Lumieres is located in a former 19th century gas plant in the Westerpark, where the 17 metre-high walls are perfect for huge, immersive projections with accompanying music, the giant images constantly changing and moving across the walls, ceiling and floor. Rotating exhibitions showcase some of the most celebrated figures in art such as Vincent van Gogh, Piet Mondrian, Claud Monet, Gustav Klimt and Salvador Dali.

Fabrique des Lumieres

Finally, for an only in Amsterdam art experience, it has to be the Sex Museum, where you’ll find Europe’s largest collection of erotic art showing how different cultures have depicted sex, from ancient times to the swinging ’60s, in a dizzying range of objects from sculptures, ceramics, paintings and prints to textiles, carvings, tobacco boxes and room-dividers. These are often executed with a skill fit to display in any fine art museum, such as in some very good paintings or erotically designed pottery from Pompeii and elsewhere in the ancient world.

Bizarrely, the so-called toilet room is dedicated to the Czech-born artist Alphonse Mucha, one of the founders of Art Nouveau, famous for his decorative theatrical posters, particularly of the French actress Sarah Bernhardt. I will leave to your imagination the 1940s French musical box with moving figures against a backdrop of the Eiffel Tower.