THE UNKNOWN VAN GOGH MUSEUM

Helene Kröller-Müller, German by birth but married to successful Dutch businessman Anton Kröller, amassed a collection of over 11,500 art objects. Her favorite artist was Vincent van Gogh, and she became the owner of more van Gogh paintings than anyone other than the van Gogh family itself, nearly 100 paintings and 175 drawings.

About an hour's train ride from Amsterdam is another Van Gogh museum that many travelers to the Netherlands miss. The Kröller-Müller Museum, located in the town of Otterlo, Netherlands in the middle of the Hoge Veluwe National Park, is home to some of van Gogh's most famous and beloved masterpieces.  Here are just a few:

Terrace of a Café at Night (Place du Forum)

Four Sunflowers Gone to Seed

L'Arlésienne

Portrait of Joseph Roulin

To read more about this museum, visit the museum website here.  To see more about my visit to the museum, visit my blog post here.

COURTYARD, DELFT

Like fellow Delft artist Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch specialized in quiet scenes of Dutch domestic life especially courtyards at the back of upper middle class homes.  Painted in the 1650s, this painting may be one of de Hooch's earliest examples of the subject and offers a glimpse into the private world of the Dutch home that visitors rarely saw.
 

SUPPER AT EMMAUS

According to the Gospel of St. Luke, after the death of Christ, two of his disciples traveling down the road to Emmaus met a stranger and invited him to join them.  At supper the stranger blessed the bread and broke it to give to the disciples.  Immediately the disciples saw the stranger was Christ risen from the dead.  

This painting dramatically captures the moment when the disciples realize the stranger is Christ himself. Caravaggio painted this masterpiece in 1601 for a Roman nobleman and avid art collector.  The painting contains all the stylistic elements that Caravaggio is noted for: the realistic figures and the dramatic changes of light and dark.

This painting is part of the London's National Gallery of Art permanent collection but in late 2009, the National Gallery lent the painting to the Art Institute of Chicago for three months in return for borrowing a painting by Francisco de Zurbará which would play a key part in an exhibition.

ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER

In 1905, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was one of the founding members of the art movement Die Brücke (The Bridge). The Brücke style attempted the creation of pure expression through color and form. Their aim was to find new ways of artistic expression and to free themselves from the traditional academic style of the time. The Brücke is therefore one of the earliest German artists’ associations which had a crucial impact on the development of classical modern art. The artists collectively created a style which was to be defined within 20th century art history as Expressionism.

In 1937 the Nazis confiscated nearly all of Kirchners's paintings that were in German museums (over 600).  Already suffering from mental problems (he suffered a nervous breakdown during his service in World War I), Kirchner committed suicide in 1938.

Here are three of his masterpieces that are part of the permanent collection of the St. Louis Art Museum.

Portrait of a Woman (1917)

View of the Basel and the Rhine (1927/1928)

Circus Rider (1914)

PIERRE BONNARD

Girl with a Straw Hat (1903)

View from the Artist's Studio, Le Cannet (1945)

Pierre Bonnard was a founding member of a group of artists called Les Nabis (Nabi means prophet in Hebrew), a short-lived group of Post-Impressionist artists in Paris in the 1890s. Although trained as a lawyer (the wishes of his father), Bonnard really wanted to be a painter and at age 21, he began studying at the Académie Julian in Paris; many of his fellow classmates would become members of Les Nabis. Know for his use of intense color, Bonnard's earlier works such as the top painting, Girl with a Straw Hat, were still being influenced by Impressionist painters such as Renoir. During his lifetime Bonnard also contributed illustrations for many books and magazines, successfully published several series of lithographs and even designed set decorations for theater and ballet productions.  Bonnard constantly showed his works in major art exhibitions not just in France, but throughout the world.  In 1910 he made his first trip to the south of France; after making annual trips to the area, he permanently moved there in 1925.  Bonnard would paint over 300 paintings, such as the bottom painting, View from the Artist's Studio, Le Cannet, that reflect the famous light and color of this area.  These paintings are just two examples of why many art historians believe that Pierre Bonnard is considered one of the greatest colorist painters of the modern art.

Both of these masterpieces are part of the collection assembled by Mrs. Harry L. Bradley during the second half of the 20th century, beginning in 1950.  Over the next twenty-five years she acquired over 400 works of art.  The idea of gifting the collection to the Milwaukee Art Museum came after she and her husband noticed how much families enjoyed visiting the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.  They wanted the same enjoyment for their hometown museum even though other major U.S. museums tried to obtain the collection.  In addition to the works of art, Mrs. Bradley gave the museum $1,000,000 to erect the Bradley Wing to house the collection.  After the Bradley Wing opened in 1975 until her death in 1977, Mrs. Bradley came to the museum nearly every day to view her collection and greet museum visitors.

CHRIST SHOWN TO THE PEOPLE (ECCE HOMO)

By the glow of blazing torchlight Pontius Pilate presents Christ to the unseen crowd that will decide his fate.  Pilate's extravagent, fur-lined coat and the page's opulent jewelry contrast with the nearly naked Christ.  Christ's simple yet eloquent expression contrasts with the ample jowls and corpulent cheeks of his judge, and the richly detailed costumes of the page and Pilate make Christ's partial nudity even more touching.

Having painted the subject of Christ shown to the people several times before, Tiziano Vecellio, born between 1488 and 1490 near Venice, and known to the art world as Titian, returned to the theme at the very end of his career, working on this painting from 1570 up until his death in 1576.  The painting looks unfinished due to the sketchiness of the flickering torch at the upper left corner.  Titian was one of the most sought-after painters of his day, by both popes and secular rulers.  For nearly sixty years he would be the most important member of the 16th century Venetian school of painters.  His powerful brushstrokes, subdued palette and emotional subjects were typical of his late style.

This painting is part of the fantastic, permanent collection of the St. Louis Art Museum.

VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH AN ANGEL

This painting hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago and was painted by Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, otherwise known as Botticelli, sometime between 1475 and 1485.  This is one of several works Botticelli painted showing the Virgin Mary tenderly embracing the Christ child.

Although he began his career much later in life than most other Renaissance painters, he is considered one of the greatest Italian Renaissance painters.  In 1481, he was one of the artists Pope Sixtus IV handpicked to paint frescoes on the walls of the Sistine Chapel.