[mav88]

I went to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam because I was there and it was on the bucket list. Pictures in a book or on web pages do not do justice to how vibrant the pictures are in real life. Plus, in the days before additional security was required, you could go right up to them (within reason) and check them out up close. They look like they were painted yesterday. Not everyone likes his work but I'm a fan.

[bane]

My wife and I both struggled to really get into his work until we went to the museum. There's something about the way the museum presented Van Gogh, as a struggling misfit of perhaps questionable talent trying to make friends and looking for a popular counter-culture style, that really clicked with me. I didn't identify with Van Gogh per se, but I suddenly felt for him and his humanity and it peeled away those layers of nonsensical pop-culture that surrounds him.

I think also that I had seen very few of his paintings in person and when you see his late works, after he figured out what he was, they explode off the canvas like nothing I've ever seen before. My wife and I went home and bought a reproduction we were so moved, and then promptly decided not to hang it when it arrived as it lacks that....whatever factor it is in his real works that make them shimmer like something from another plane of spacetime.

I really recommend people who don't like van Gogh to visit that museum.

[borbulon]

I could spend days in front of just one of his real works.

[runamok]

The texture of his paintings is impossible to reproduce in a print. He really slathered it on!

[diego_moita]

> Pictures in a book or on web pages do not do justice to how vibrant the pictures are in real life

This is true and big.

The paintings are nice on books and screens but are stunning in real life. There is a lot of nuance in the colours that pictures don't replicate.

Same happens to Vermeer landscapes. His "View of Delft" is just nice on screen but almost magical when seen in real.

[toyg]

I've just visited the Detroit Institute of Arts (which is excellent, by the way; a revelation to this cynical and displaced Italian). They have a fairly unknown (at least to me) 1873 painting titled Syria by the Sea, by Frederic Edwin Church. It's a capriccio, an imaginary landscape mixing ruins of various civilization, at sunset. On a screen or a page, it's just another bucolic landscape; but its size and colors are such that, in real life, it's simply a glorious experience.

[HankB99]

> but its size ...

Interesting that you mention that. Our grandkids all got Van Gogh reproductions for their rooms(). I found it difficult to find the size of the originals and even harder to find reproductions at the same size (looking for cheap stuff on Amazon.) Worse yet, some of the repros were not the same aspect ratio indicating they had been cropped.

I'm not even close to any kind of art expert but it seems to me that the size of the original or what the artist does with an available size canvas are intentional.

() At 3 years old, our eldest grandson looked at a picture on our wall and correctly identified it as a Starry Night. We have no idea where he learned that but were impressed regardless.

[boppo1]

Did you get to see Cotopaxi? It's in the same room, in the center. I have the good fortune of living near the DIA.

[toyg]

Absolutely, but I had some knowledge about that, so I was less surprised by it than by Syria. It's also a more angry, sinister painting, with darker tones.

You guys should cherish the DIA, it's a gem.

[boppo1]

Indeed it is. We try to.

[themerone]

We are extremely lucky that the bankruptcy court did not let Detroit's creditors raid the collection.

[jacquesm]

Van Ostade as well. And Ruisdael too. Those sky paintings are just incredible and seeing them reproduced isn't even close to the real thing.

[golemotron]

HN might be the best place to ask. What lights do galleries use? They make the paintings pop.

[briandear]

My house is essentially an art gallery — I had a museum lighting expert do all of the lighting installs and the key thing is going to be the width of the light (correctly focusing the light so it doesn’t spill outside of the painting much,) then color temperature.

The focus of the light is key — by lighting the painting and not lighting the walls around it, that makes it pop a lot more than typically area lighting common in residential applications. Color temperature is also very important. Finally, in my case; my walls are painted a dark, lead-pipe grey so it makes the paintings really jump.

The brand of my lights is Wac Lighting controlled by Lutron dimmers in case you are interested. Color balanced LED. LED used to be inferior for galleries, but the tech has gotten very good (added benefit of running a lot cooler than the old halogen.)

[KANahas]

Another huge aspect is the CRI/CQS of your light sources. CRI (Color Rendering Index) and CQS (Color Quality Scale) try to quantify how faithfully colors are represented when a subject is lit.

Generally a higher CRI equals a higher quality light source. A halogen/incandescent lamp has a perfect score, 100. High end LED sources are usually in the range of 95-98, but that number can be gamed, which has lead to the creation of CQS.

https://blog.1000bulbs.com/home/is-color-quality-scale-bette...

[briandear]

CQS is super important. That was a key tool for selecting the LED that we did. Thanks for bringing that up!

[RamRodification]

Any recommendations on how to find the correct color temperature? Should it maybe be matched with the actual painting (how?) or dialed in to fit the rest of the room (how)?

[briandear]

Typically 3600-3800K. My lights are 3600K. A light meter for photography can give you color temperature, but it will always be printed on the box for your bulbs.

I wouldn’t overthink it.. just as long as you stay out of the 4500K+ range (approaching daylight,) things will look great. The warmth of the 3600K range is great — anything less than that and the warmth of the light starts to affect color rendition, anything more and the light gets bluer and harsher.

Your eyes can be the guide. But having correctly focused light at the correct intensity (not too bright for instance) is key. There are use cases for daylight balance — if you are in a mixed light situation such as a windowed or skylight with abondant sunlight, you might consider going a little cooler on the color temperature — but again, use your eyes.

It can be really fun messing with lighting and art! Good luck.

[RamRodification]

Thanks for taking the time!

[Misdicorl]

Surely the lighting matters but I think it is only secondary. The thing that's missing in reproductions is the physical texture of the paintings.

[bookofjoe]

I'm thinking super high-end 3D printers in 10 years will solve this problem.

[Fraterkes]

Detail-wise 3d printed reproductions have been decent enough for a while I think. The trickier part is mimicking the texture of complexly layered and blended oil-paint with filaments.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

I'm not so certain. Up close, paintings are complex 3D sculptures made from a palette of materials, (not colors), each with varying levels of translucence, different reflective properties, different textures, etc. and they can be combined and moved around in infinitely complex ways.

Might be possible in a few decades, though.

[kdkirsch]

They’re doing this! Read about the restoration of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch (https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/whats-on/exhibitions/operation...). Amazing tech.

[isaacfrond]

Next time your in the Netherlands, check out the Kröller-Müller museum. Its collection was created by an art lover who was one of the first to appreciate van Gogh. Although its collection is a bit smaller than that of the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, it is, I think, of a higher quality.

[stevesimmons]

Kroller-Muller also has a great Mondriaan collection. Mondriaan's later coloured geometric paintings really make sense when you see his early landscapes with trees, and then a period experimenting with thinning out trees focusing on the branches and spaces between them.

The museum also has a fun sculpture garden.

[1] https://krollermuller.nl/en/search-the-collection/keywords=%...

[Cthulhu_]

Plus, bonus nature environment, it's not as touristy as Amsterdam. I mean it's a tourist area for sure, but without the bustle of Amsterdam.

I went there once right after new year's, the museum and restaurant were closed but it was so quiet elsewhere, it was great.

[NietTim]

Yep! You can grab a free bike and go for a ride around the park surrounding the museum. Highly recommend it

[mav88]

I will, thanks!

[Shrezzing]

I went a while ago to the same museum. Jean-François Millet's work is in the basement there, as he's one of Van Gogh's inspirations. Millet's work is all dreary peasants toiling in the bleak fields, really grim and depressing stuff, and I would probably never look twice at it online.

Then you get to see his work up close. It's outstanding. It's jaw-droppingly beautiful and intricate. Some of the pieces absolutely overwhelmed me. His paintings are mostly done with a line technique, where he'll paint lines over and over again until the canvas is complete with a comprehensible picture. I'm not sure what it is about screens, but they just don't convey the detail properly at all. On his wikipedia page, Millet's work appears to me as the bleak flat paintings I'd have ignored before I saw his work in person - copies of the exact same paintings I'd seen in person, which overwhelmed me.

I don't really understand why, but there's something fundamentally different about seeing some art in person.

[deeg]

Also, his paintings are so thick. Photos don't allow you to see how the paint was applied on top of other paint. Seeing them in person allowed me to understand that Van Gogh attacked his canvas.

[pcurve]

What's wild is some of his painting appear to be thick without using a ton of paint. It's amazing to think that most of his work was done in a span of couple years.

[swayvil]

Destitute outcast dressed in rags. But he could afford to slather his canvases deep with that pricey oil paint. And don't get me started on storage space. Those paintings take up room.

Maybe he had a trustfund. Maybe he spent 99% on art supplies and 1% on potatoes. I dunno.

[CamperBob2]

"When art critics get together, they discuss color, form, and composition. When artists get together, they discuss where to get a good price on paint." - paraphrasing Picasso

[Saturn5]

He was not rich, he mostly painted farmers and peasants and never sold anything.

His family, especially his brother Theo, was well off and they sent him an allowance to survive as well as art supplies. (I would not be surprised that they were afraid that, if they send more money he'd spent it on alchool instead of supplies)

As for space, I think he sent most of his paintings to his brother in exchange for the allowance.

[jacquesm]

> Maybe he had a trustfund. Maybe he spent 99% on art supplies and 1% on potatoes. I dunno.

Then maybe read a biography?

[bloomingeek]

Actually he had a brother and other relatives who sponsored him. They knew he had some kind of mental illness and basically kept him at a distance. They loved him, but he was a handful.

[agnos]

That museum is great. Spending a day there gave me a deep appreciation for Van Gogh, maybe even art in general. Pictures online definitely don't do it justice. The museum also has a good guided audio tour that narrates Van Gogh's life story as you go through the collection.

The mesmerizing colors and poignant landscapes, the neurotic physicality of the brush strokes, all told through Van Gogh's letters to his brother -- it was a vivid experience. I understood that Van Gogh saw the world in a different way, and for a moment I saw it too.

[shrx]

> They look like they were painted yesterday.

Actually, some of the pigments van Gogh used have significantly faded or shifted in color over time. https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i5/Van-Goghs-Fading-Colors-I...

[mav88]

That's sad. If only he had known 7 layer Flemish technique. On the other hand, then we wouldn't have his unique style.

[aksss]

I've had that same rewarding experience at the museum. I figured at least part of it was because you don't fully appreciate the depth of the paint itself on the canvas when looking at a photo of Van Gogh's work. I was really struck by how much dimension there was in the medium, as opposed to a typical oil on canvas painting, like say, The Night Watch. It's physically a very different thing than a photograph can convey. I think you grow up hearing VG is this awesome painter who did these awesome works, here they are, and they look cool, but personally I never appreciated his work as much as I did after seeing the physical objects. The story is more than the graphical composition and color, the brush strokes are more two dimensional. The gestalt is beyond what a book or poster can convey.

[mutagen]

I didn't have an opinion until I visited the Met and went through their impressionist exhibit. One of the centerpieces was a self portrait but I was absolutely enthralled by his Sunflower.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436524?sortB...

[hef19898]

That museum was definitely one of the highlights! I can only second every recommendation for it.

[iaseiadit]

When I went to Amsterdam, I made the mistake of not booking tickets in advance. It was totally sold out the entire time I was there. Would love to have gone.

The Rijksmuseum next door was impressive, though extremely crowded.

[jb1991]

You can still go right up to them and look at them very close.

[cwbrandsma]

I was there last month…my goodness it was busy. So many people. Go early if you can.

[curiousgal]

I guess I'm the only one who found the museum to be lackluster.