Contrary to what my friends expect, my annual visits to Amsterdam are not focused on night life and hedonism but on re-visiting my favorite places and galleries & museums & cinemas. Night life is fine, but I also need something beautiful to re-charge batteries, something that I would remember and keep with me when I'm working again on the ships.
One of my favorite spots is Amsterdam's Hermitage museum - it's a satellite of the big russian mama in st.Petersburg (and I visited that one) where temporary exhibitions are changing every 6 months so that suits me fine, as I am visiting in these intervals. The building is very elegant, right in the centre on Amstel river and is museum is situated in a place that for centuries was an retirement home for elderly people. It was serving this purpose from 1682 to 2007 when it was finally changed into museum (and new retirement home was built somewhere else). Russian president and Dutch queen were present on the opening of the stunning,new museum.
This time around the exhibition was called "Impressionism: Sensation & Inspiration" and it was all about impressionists and their predecessors - very,very beautiful collection of paintings and sculptures by Gaugin, Cezanne, Rodin, Renoir and Monet. Because the weather was cold and rainy, museum was quite busy but I didn't mind, in fact I was excited to see lot of other people being impressed together with me and sharing my enthusiasm. On several occasions I was so happy and thrilled with beautiful art that I laughed out loud from sheer happiness. Impressionists were fine but I liked their predecessors maybe even better - artists who are mostly forgotten now and belonged to slightly more formal,classic style of expression - I wrote some names down for future research: Alphonse De Neuville, Jean-Paul Laurens, Jean-Leon Gerome and Edmond Grandjean - beautiful, beautiful salon art that was displayed around Paris long time ago. It was not quite impressionism but was going there and most of it was inspired by history and than recent archeological excavations in Pompeii. I had to admit to myself hat impressionism is probably as far as I would go when it comes to paintings, since I have no feelings for modern art and really love everything historical and classical. Was so happy & full of impressions that I left the museum like walking on the clouds, really beautiful day and a good decision.
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