Highlights of Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum | Museum Tour

Good morning everyone. I'm here in the Rijksmuseum which is the main museum of the Netherlands. So it's a gorgeous day here and I thought I would start the morning with a walk through this grand museum which is housed in this amazing building by the way because there's just so much history, culture and art to explore. So I'm going to learn a lot more about the Dutch naval supremacy, its trade and the Dutch East and West India trading companies as well as look at some of works of Rembrandt and Van Gogh. So join me as we explore Rijksmuseum. So I've just spoken to the lady at the information desk and I said if somebody has one to two hours what would you recommend seeing in the Rijksmuseum and she said level two and if you have time as well to level one. Level two being the most important because this is really the Dutch golden age which is what we were talking about the previous video in our walking tour of Amsterdam which is basically the reason why the Netherlands and Amsterdam in particular became incredibly wealthy. Amsterdam becoming the wealthiest city in the world and again the earlier you come the less tourists. And here we have the works by Rembrandt who is considered to be one of the best painters in all of history. In particular Rembrandt was a Dutch golden age painter so he depicted a lot of scenes during this golden age time. He is particularly well known for the portraits that he was doing. So here we have the syndex which is a iconic piece by Rembrandt and it's actually the last large portrait that he was commissioned to paint. There is just a mind-blowing amount of detail that's gone into this. Low-lying land, water, expansive sky. Very typically Dutch painting here and especially with the windmill. So this area is called the gallery of honor in the Rijksmuseum and here we have the famous painting the night watch by Rembrandt. So the interesting thing about the night watch is that it wasn't actually painted depicting the scene at night. So there was actually a dark varnish and a lot of dirt which actually created the impression that it was painted at night. It was actually this dark varnish and dirt which actually protected this painting from a knife attack in 1911. It was that thick. It was only until they started cleaning it later that they were able to see that it was painted during a day scene. So we're now in this naval themed wing of the second level in the Rijksmuseum. I just love these naval battles. So this depicts the explosion of the Spanish flagship during the battle of Gibraltar. The Spanish vessels which posed a threat to the Dutch trade that's all about business at the end of the day were destroyed. It was the first major Dutch victory at sea and here the painter represents this victory in triumphant style. About 10 crew members just being blasted into the air from this explosion. So it's interesting we can read here a little bit more about the Netherlands overseas in particular the Dutch East India and the Dutch West India trading companies. So in the 17th and 18th centuries overseas trade was the mainstay. It was the main thing driving the Dutch economy and wealth. Of course this privileged position could only be maintained with slavery with free labor. This is how a lot of these companies and people became incredibly wealthy notwithstanding the people actually running businesses otherwise. The Dutch East India Company was headquartered in Batavia which is Jakarta in Indonesia from where the trade in the east was controlled. You also had the Dutch West India Company which was focused on that west coast of Africa. So there was a heavy focus in Ghana in particular where there was the export of gold ivory and slaves. So the humans themselves were shipped out to various places not only in Europe now around the world. So over the course of these 200 years the Dutch shipped over 600,000 enslaved Africans to the west. So here we've got some doll's houses and actually in the 17th century doll's houses were not for little girls they're actually for quite wealthy grown women. It was kind of like a wealthy upper class pastime to have a doll house for a woman. So you guys remember when we walked in here about one hour ago there were very few people. Check this out. Yeah. So it always pays to be early. If you want to go check something like this out. So here we've got some artworks by Vincent van Gogh who was a Dutch post-impressionist painter. He became more popular posthumously so after he died actually and there was a period over 10 years where he actually produced over 2,100 pieces of artwork which is staggering. So he was a prolific creator and artist. I just had to show you the lines. So come early. Travel tip. You're gonna go to the Rijksmuseum. Come around nine o'clock when it opens and you will be not disappointed. You will not be disappointed if you come here earlier. So get here at 9am when it opens and you'll avoid a lot of the crowds. Alright guys that's it for now. I hope you enjoy this walk around the Rijksmuseum. No doubt we only covered a little bit of all of the different pieces of artwork and history and information available but it was a great insight into Dutch history and Dutch culture. And I've got friends arriving in about 30 minutes from Australia so I'm gonna go get ready to greet them and look forward to a great time. So if you enjoyed the video give me a like, subscribe and I will see you in the next adventure. See ya!