Van Gogh in Seoul

Upon deliberating whether we should see the Van Gogh exhibit or play boardgames, I forced Curtis to promise me that we would see that Van Gogh exhibit the next Saturday. Since it was the last weekend I was prepared for it to be completely packed so I insisted that we head out early. Early for us meant out the door by 10:00, which is admirable considering on weekdays we're not out the door before 12:30. Getting ready to head out, I noticed my own excitement. I was especially thinking about how amazing it would be to actually set my eyes upon "The Starry Night" and the sunflowers series.

We got there and at first weren't quite sure which direction to head. We had been given the exit number to leave the subway, but other than that it was more or less just assumed that it would be obvious. Not 5 minutes later, we saw a huge banner with "Van Gogh" printed on it. Hehehehe, in hindsight it makes me feel silly for thinking it wasn't obvious even for 5 minutes. :) Smaller banners lined the small brick street leading to the museum. Other exhibitioners were walking the same direction so we kept going for about 10 minutes. We saw a line forming and followed suit.

Coming up to the museum, it looked more European than it did Korean. It was concrete with pillars and mouldings. The glass revolving doors gave it the modern twist. It was not a long wait before we were inside. The inside of the building looked so much different than the outside. Panels of light coloured wood and flat panel garage doors concealed the works of art and sectioned off each exhibit. There was a huge banner declaring the presence of Van Gogh's art, but then no other signs. As soon as we entered the building, there was another line up. There were black strap gates to direct and move the traffic through this museum and attendants pointing and directing people. Once we were ushered up a set of stairs, it seemed like the rest of the museum was fair game. No more lines, no more black strap ropes.

As we went on, we noticed a pattern from the other viewers. It was common not to stand in line actually, but instead to go to a painting you wanted to see and elbow your way to the front, stand there for a minute, and then shimmy your way back out again. It made the line incredibly slow and so after about an hour of being patient we decided to do as the Koreans did.

We found the first room displaying Van Gogh. They were mostly drawings and chalk sketches. Not at all what I had imagined. There were human subjects in the sketches doing farm work. He drew and painted a lot of people just being people. It was really interesting. Halfway through the second of three rooms we started to see the oil on canvas that Van Gogh was famous for. It was really breathtaking. None of the ones that we saw were particularly famous except "Vase with Irises". The colour that he used were vivid and the contrasts were stunning. I didn't get to see any of the sunflowers paintings or "The Starry Night", but I feel lucky to have seen the ones I did.