Visiting the Vincent Van Gogh Art Museum

---

I recently had the great privilege of visiting the Van Gogh Art Museum in Amsterdam. This has been a dream of mine for many years and I spent 5 hours immersed in his beautiful art and world.

Vincent is best known for both his extraordinary art and his terrible struggle with mental health. Having now seen his art on a large scale, I personally feel he was a far more spiritual person then I had previously understood or realised. When you look at his paintings up close, not only are they full of great artistic skill and a finely tuned intelligence, the most compelling ingredient is they are all full of hope and love and yet tinged with a deep, abiding sorrow.

​My lasting impression was that Vincent was so full of love but struggled to find some place for all this love to go. I suspect for a lot of people dealing with mental health issues such as  anxiety, depression, grief and trauma, they would relate well to this emotional paradox and the consequent mental struggle this can create..

Since first seeing a Van Gogh as a young adult, I have always been completely mystified by why I have found his work so fascinating and magnetic. For me, that mystery is now solved.

​Vincent believed strongly in the importance of giving back to the community, that the workers in the field whom he watched labor as a child harvesting the crops, deserved to go home and find beautiful pictures on their walls, to give them solace and comfort. Vincent felt duty bound to create art for all people to take spiritual comfort from. In a sense, this museum now represents this ideal of his, or certainly as close as it will ever get.

If you ever happen to be in Amsterdam, please give your self a treat and visit this wonderful museum..