The four day trip to the Netherlands (Day 3 morning still) - Eindhoven - On the way to The Van Abbe Museum; Van Abbe Museum - The 16th of May 2015

Following the visit to Saint Catherine's church we headed towards the Van Abbe Museum Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art having stopped at a church and the Townhall square with its World War II memorial on the way. It looked as if could rain any moment but we were not that worried once we expected to spend at least the next two hours exploring the Museum.

The Museum was established in 1936 and is named after his founder, Henry Van Abbe, who was a lover of modern Art having collected more than 2700 works of Art which include 700 paintings, 1000 sculptures and various installations.

 

A new wing is said to have been added as an extension to the old building whose space could not accommodate the aquired contemporary Art works.

 

We walked around its garden coming from the back part  and as we made it to the Museum entrance it started to rain quite heavily.

We walked straight into the Modern Art gallery, which is not what I had envisaged to explore. I am not particularly keen on Modern Art, which came as a shock once we were addressed by a guide in that section to soon leave him wondering why he hadn't convinced us to visit that particular part of the Museum. I nevertheless still managed to photograph two pieces I felt were rather interesting. 

Once we walked into the paintings' section I felt "at home". There's something about Art which definitely impacts me in such a way that it feels like tha's where I belong and I can spend endless hour admiring the strokes of paint and letting myself get entangled in artistry.

 

Hommage à Apolinnaire by Mark Chagal - 1913

La Roche Guyon by Georges Braque - 1909  (left). Femme en vert by Pablo Picasso - 1909 (right)

 

Farm (detail) by Heinrich Campendonk - 1919

Blick auf Murnay mit kirche by Wassily Kandinsky - 1910 (left). Landshap by Jan Sluijters (right)

 

 

 

Winterbild by Max Beckmann - 1930

Le bain des vagabonds by Jean Brusselmans - 1936

Vrouwenfiguren by Charley Toorop - 1931-32

 

 

 

Dance Hall by Gust. De Smet - 1921

Stadsgezicht by Carel Willink - 1934

(To be continued)

 

The four day trip to the Netherlands (Day 3 morning cont.) - Eindhoven - Saint Catherine's Church (cont.) - The 16th of May 2015

(...)

I then started looking at the sculptures and paintings that decorated the churche walls, as well as the stained glass windows, which I found to be particularly interesting as far as the modern design is concerned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the gallery behind the altar I came across a number of pictures painted by pupils from the Kinder Kunststudio "Raduga", some as young as six as well as from another "words and images" project, which I couldn't help but photograph, not only because I felt it was a rather unique approach to Art but also the fact of having those paintings which were not religious oriented displayed in the church.

 

No information was provided in English with the exception of a placard outside and one area dedicated to former excavations where 750 human remains were said to have been discovered. According to that information close to the reconstruction of the facial features of two of those corpses, many of the coffins found during those excavations were coated with a lime layer, which certainly meant that those buried in them had passed away due to infectious diseases and must have probably been plague victims. 

I found the visit to be rather interesting, though as a foreign visitor I would have liked to have had access to information in any other Language but Dutch, which I can't speak.