The plan was to get up early and go into Amsterdam with Rory to see the Rijks Museum and the Stedelijk Museum. That plan was thwarted by my daughter's jet lag. She was up half the night, so our early departure was delayed until midday. We still managed to see a lot and enjoy a leisurely walk through town back to the train station. We saw the masters (Rembrandt, Vermeer, et al) at the Rijks Museum and then a really interesting de Stijl exhibition at the Stedelijk. This year is the 100-year anniversary of de Stijl, so many museums are participating in big retrospective exhibitions. From the Stedelijk's description:
"The Stedelijk presents the breadth of its collection of De Stijl, and explores relationships between the movement and the work of other artists in the museum’s holdings. Part of the 100 years of De Stijl program. The presentation examines different facets such as use of colour, the diagonal, purity, architecture and the dissemination of the movement. Works of De Stijl that powerfully convey this ideology are juxtaposed with work by post-war artists. De Stijl was clearly an inexorable certainty for successive generations. Some artists offer an inspired ode; others explore what De Stijl means today."
We also saw a Rineke Dijkstra exhibition of which we realized we had already seen a lot of the work in New York, but it's always good to see her work. In the evening when we got back to Amersfoort, we went out to dinner and had a walk through town.
Amersfoort:
