Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 1, 1990 TAG: 9004010244
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: BUS-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE LEPOSKY
DATELINE: AMSTERDAM LENGTH: Long
This is The Netherlands in spring, a time of joyous rebirth. This year the natives are sharing it with more than 1 million art lovers from around the world who have come to view exhibitions that commemorate the centennial of Vincent Van Gogh's death.
The Van Gogh Museum - a modern five-story structure with a vast atrium - is mounting a remarkable retrospective exhibition of about 150 works by the renowned Dutch impressionist.
Augmenting its own collection, the museum has borrowed from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, the National Gallery and Tate Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, among others.
Famous paintings in the exhibition include The Potato Eaters, Gaugin's Armchair, The Night Cafe, Starry Night, The Yellow House, The Sunflowers and Orchards in Blossom Series, The Weaver, The Bedroom, The Berceuse and L'Arlesienne.
Another museum, the Kroller-Muller in Otterlo near Arnhem, is displaying about 250 Van Gogh drawings.
Both exhibitions opened Friday, Van Gogh's birthday, and will close July 29, the day he died. To avoid long lines, the museums have arranged a reservation system with tickets available in the United States through Ticketron for $12.50 per museum.
The ticketholder may enter the museum within a two-hour period on the specified day and stay as long as he or she likes. There will be a shuttle bus among the museums.
Tickets may be ordered by credit card at any Ticketron outlet or by calling 212-947-5850.
Later this year, the Van Gogh Museum here will display his letters in late summer, and works by other famous modern artists influenced by Van Gogh in November and December.
Anyone going to The Netherlands for the Van Gogh exhibitions should allow some time to explore other aspects of the country. Amsterdam alone has more museums than a month has days; enough concert, ballet, opera, theater and film performances on any given evening to pose an aesthetic dilemma; an overhwelming array of shops, stores, galleries and boutiques to test your willpower; and palate-tempting cuisine from countries all over the world. It also has an inexpensive, efficient public transit system. Streetcars and buses help you avoid long waits and long walks.
Museum explorations probably will take most people to the Rijksmuseum to gaze in awe upon Rembrandt's famed "Nightwatch," and other masterworks by this 17th century genius and his contemporaries. Rembrandt's home is now a museum, featuring 250 of his etchings.
On a contemporary note, Museum Fodor displays the works of the current generation of Amsterdam artists.
Less famous, but fascinating to many visitors, is the Amsterdam Historical Museum just off the Kalverstraat, one of the city's main shopping streets. It presents a chronology of Amsterdam's physical, economic and social development from the Middle Ages through World War II. Much of the explanatory signage is in English.
"Our approach is contgroversial," says Vincent G. van de Ven, a spokesman for the historical museum. "The quality of our collection of paintings, silver and glass matches the collections in the Rijksmuseum, but we use art to tell the city's story, not as art itself. Of course, the rich people had these objects, which were expensive and well-kept.
"Though it's difficult to find material that will tell the story of the everyday people, we're using archaeology to fill in the gaps. Before a new building can be constructed in the center of Amsterdam, the city's archaeological service is allowed to dig."
Other museums in Amsterdam specialize in air travel, ancient Egyptian and Greek archaeology, the Bible, modern technology, the theater and life in the tropics.
The house where Anne Frank hid from the Nazis also is a museum, with exhibits detailing her life and the history of racism.
Shopping is uncomplicated in Amsterdam because almost all the sales personnel speak excellent English. The city has about 10,500 shops, 140 galleries and 26 markets, many on streets limited to pedestrian traffic.
A major shopping attraction is the diamond-cutting industry. Free guided tours are available at eight factories where craftsmen cut and polish diamonds and set them in jewelry.
More than 100 antiques shops line the narrow Nieuwe Spiegelstraat near the Rijksmuseum, and leading Dutch and international fashion houses cluster in the Museum Quarter.
On warm spring nights, dining out can be a form of recreation in itself. Haesje Claes, near the Amsterdam Historical Museum, specializes in hearty traditional Dutch fare: brisket and steak from lean, grass-fed beef; Edam and Gouda cheeses actually made in Edam and Gouda, which are small towns nearby; herring, mackerel and salmon from the North Sea; and succulent fresh-water eel from the Ijsselmeer (the former Zuider Zee, now a freshwater lake separated from the North Sea by a 20-mile dike).
More than three centuries of Dutch rule in Indonesia established the culinary traditions of the spice islands throughout The Netherlands. Be sure to experience an Indonesian rijsttafel (rice table ) meal - a feast of a dozen diverse dishes with complementary and contrasting flavors accompanied by a large bowl of dry white rice. Included are sate - chunks of beef, chicken, lamb or pork skewered on a stick, braised over glowing charcoal and dipped in peanut sauce - and sambal - soybean dishes prepared with chilis, garlic, onions and tomatoes.
by CNB