RijksMuseum

The Rijksmuseum is a famous museum in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. The first opening to the public was in 1885. You can go under the building to pass trought it, and you arrive in a big garden, with a glasshouse, a big flat of grass, and many restaurants and shops.

Our experience :

The third day of our trip, we went to Amsterdam. We visited the Anne Frank house, we walked a little bit in the streets of this beautiful city, know for its canals and the beautiful architecture. And then, we did a break in the garden next to the Rijksmuseum. There were many shops, a big grass field and a little area more maintained, where there was a greenhouse, some trees, and some edges.

After this, we came in the museum. It’s a big modern place with a high ceiling. Everything is clean and white. Then, we had one hour to visit the museum and take some pictures. We also had to choose a painting that we would introduce (say the name of the painting, the type of it, and why we choosed this one). So all of the group split and tried to visit all of the rooms. There were many famous artists paintings and sculptures. At the time that we gone there, the painting exhibition was about Rembrandt Velazquez. The room that we liked the most was the library because it was extremely beautiful with the lights and the old books.

Also, during the trip, we had to present the flamish painter Jan van Eyck, because some of his artworks were in the museum.

So, now we will talk about the rooms, and the artworks that were in the Rijksmuseum :

The outside

The building :

The frontage looks like a castle, but at the beginning, the catholic architect Pierre Cuypers had drawn a kind of a secular cathedral, semi-gothic, semi-renaissance, however, in 1885, the Portestant Guillaume III didn’t approve that, and refused to inaugurate it. It still oppened at the end of the XIXᵉ century. It knew some work during ten years, from 2003, but oppened a second time in april 2013.

The hall

The rooms :

It is composed of more than two hundred rooms with about eight thousand works of art. On the left, you can take a look at the hall, that is extremely modern unlike the outside.

A random room

Some other rooms are more or less modern but generaly, it is simple and modern. The wall aren’t extremely decorated to focus on the painting and others.

The library

As you can see, there is a very hight library where are stocked many old books. It is forbidden to take photos with the flash because it could hurt the books. Down, there are some tables and chair to work in silence. It was our favorite room.

The first stage is dedicated to the paintings

The artworks :

The milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer, 1658

Many works aren’t exposed for all of the year ; it depends on the exposure. Most are European paintings, sculptures, decorative objects, books, or Asian works. In the museum, there are many famous artists like (one of the first that have been exposed) Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Johannes Vermeer, Frans Hals, or Jan van Eyck. The most famous paintings are those of Rembrandt, and the extremely famous Milkmaid, by Johannes Vermeer.

For the sculptures, we can notice the seated cupid, by Étienne-Maurice Falconet, the Caritas Educatrice by Lorenzo Bartolini, or the Lunar Bird, that is more contemporary.

Now let’s talk about a flamish painter, Jan van Eyck. He was born on 1390, in Maaseik, and he died in 1441, in Bruges. His type of paintings were the Renaissance, and the primitif Flemish. He painted the mystical ring, the spouses Amolfini, or the Virgin of Chancellor Rolin. Some of his paintings were in the museum.

To conclude, it was a big museum with many famous artworks of the europe and the asian culture, we liked to discover this ones and we liked the most the library.

Thank you for reading this article, and we hope that this have made you want to visit the Rijksmuseum.

Article by : Léonie & Alice