Art in Amsterdam

Golden Age Masterpieces in the City of Canals

No city shaped Western painting more decisively than Amsterdam in the 17th century. While Rome had its popes and Florence its Medicis, Amsterdam had something altogether different: a prosperous merchant class hungry for art, and a generation of painters who answered that demand with breathtaking skill. Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals and their contemporaries created an entirely new visual language — intimate, naturalistic, flooded with light — that would influence European painting for centuries.

Today Amsterdam holds the greatest concentration of Dutch Golden Age masterpieces anywhere in the world, above all in the magnificent Rijksmuseum. But the city offers more than history: the Van Gogh Museum traces the arc of the most passionate genius of the 19th century, while the Stedelijk charts the course of modern art from Mondrian onwards. Amsterdam rewards the art lover at every turn.