Any trip to Amsterdam is not complete without a visit to the Van Gogh Museum. You may not be an art aficionado, but you can’t miss seeing this museum, filled with the life’s work history’s second most famous one-eared artists.

If you don’t know anything about art or Van Gogh’s work, here some pointers to make sure you sound like you’re the founder of the Vincent Van Gogh fan club.

Van Gogh (pronounced Van Gof) was born 1853 in Holland. It was only in 1880 as a late 20-something hipster that Van Gogh decided to become an artist after several failed attempts at conventional careers.

In the 10 years that followed, Van Gogh produced over 900 paintings, with the most famous works only coming out in the last two to three years of the decade. By age 37, he was friendless, relatively unknown and dead. But like many artists, he needed to die to get people to notice.

His legacy was created by his sister-in-law who, unlike Van Gogh’s mother, did not burn his works for heat in the winter. Instead, she bequeathed Van Gogh’s work to the city of Amsterdam to create a museum in honor of Holland’s most important Post-Impressionistic painter.

The Influences
The Dutch influence shows clearly in his early body of work. Dark scenes of every day life, “The Potato Eaters” is probably his best known work during this period. Dark browns, dark reds, dark drab colors. It’s a direct contrast to his later works when he discovers the color wheel in Paris.
Many experts like to point to the explosion of color midway through his career as a direct influence from the Impressionism Movement, discovered upon his move to Paris. Yes, there’s a distinct shift to light, color and movement that brings to life the Van Gogh we all admire. Van Gogh is a Master of Movement using each brush stroke to bring to life each subject.

However, this is not true. Actually, all of Van Gogh’s work is extremely colorful — however, Holland only had four colors in the 1800s, as most people were unable to afford blues and reds, much less the luxuries of yellow– they ate a potato for dinner every night, they weren’t rich. Life was gray and drab in The Netherlands, Van Gogh’s Dutch paintings were extremely colorful, but in the brilliant grays and blacks of his time.

The Works
“Skull of Skeleton with Burning Cigarette” is an early Van Gogh work. Small, compact and using black, white only a few shades in between, this painting seems simple, but it’s not. This is a study of the human form with a small twist, a little private joke of Van Gogh railing against the system.

“Sunflowers, 1889” shines brightly with hues of yellow. This painting is one in a series of 12 sunflower paintings used to decorate the room in which Paul Gauguin was to stay when he visited Van Gogh. In this particular painting, Van Gogh took one color and gave depth using tones within the color. Not a wasted motion, each time brush met canvas, it was an agonizing effort to capture the fleeting life of the subject.

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Self Portraits. You’d think that Van Gogh had an ego issue with all the self portraits. But understand, painters often use themselves as models. Take a walk through Van Gogh’s life by viewing the self portraits, it’s an interesting look at the man. Plus, what artist isn’t a little narcissistic?

The Man
Van Gogh wrote, sketched and painted. A lot.

The man churned out over 900 paintings in a ten year period. He also wrote a kabillion letters, mostly to his brother, both filled with studies of paintings he was working on and stories of what was going on. His letters are considered some of the best pieces of correspondence by an artist, filled with passionate explanations of his upcoming works and life around him.

Van Gogh studied and hung out with many of artists you’ve probably heard of – Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec and Gauguin. In the artist world, you can’t get much better than that. Imagine the boasting, competition and admiration in that group.

Van Gogh did do all those crazy things – yes, he cut his ear off after a fight with Gauguin and he did end his life with a shotgun. He had some issues, but out of the chaos, he created some of the most beautiful paintings that are most revered and admired today.

The last ditch effort
If you’re cornered and can’t remember details, just say “I love his work from the late 1880′s” and you’ll sound like a pro.

Tags: Amsterdam, hipster, influences, travel, Van Gogh