Van Gogh Museum reopens in Amsterdam

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has reopened after a seven-month renovation, kicking off with "Van Gogh at Work," an exhibition that shows the famously tortured artist's working methods right down to his paints, brushes and other tools, AP reported.

Appropriately, the final painting was a self-portrait in which Vincent Van Gogh painted himself behind a canvas, brushes and palette in hand. Nearby, on loan from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, are an actual palette and paints that Van Gogh used.

Marije Vellekoop, head of collections, said they were preserved by Dr. Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, the physician who treated the artist in the final months before his 1890 suicide.

Although Van Gogh received little acclaim during in his life and sold few paintings, Gachet decided to hold on to some of his patient's tools.

In all, 145 paintings and sketches are on display, almost double the museum's usual collection.

A highlight is the display of two versions of Van Gogh's famed yellow "Sunflowers," hung on either side of a green-dominated portrait he painted known as "La Berceuse."

The reopening of the museum is something of a milestone for Amsterdam's cultural scene: with it, all three of the city's biggest art museums are open for the first time in years.