Amsterdam's Museumplein offers several ways into the history of art, but the Van Gogh Museum asks a particularly concentrated question: how does a painter find his own language? Its collection follows Vincent van Gogh through changes of subject, colour and working method. The familiar images are here, yet their power grows when they are seen as part of a developing practice, rather than as isolated emblems reproduced on postcards.
A useful beginning is the contrast between the dark interior of The Potato Eaters, painted in 1885, and the concentrated yellows of the Amsterdam Sunflowers of 1889. These are not simply two moods. They show different problems being addressed through paint: a group sharing a table in one work, a restricted range of colour and the forms of flowers in another. Allow time to look before searching for the next celebrated title.
