Showing posts with label charlotte salomon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charlotte salomon. Show all posts

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Amsterdam - Day 3 (Part 1)

On the third day of my stay I used the 72-hours i amsterdam card. The Van Gogh Museum was too crowded, so I just walked on to the Jewish Historical Museum. Wonderful and interesting! And I was pretty lucky with the special exhibitions they had there at the moment.


The museum is housed in four synagogues. Each synagoge shows a different part of the museum. There was an exhibit which reminded me of my husband: A hat with a hat box and a little hammer. Any body who knows what it is used for?

One exhibition showed works by Charlotte Salomon, titled "Work in Progress". On display were the reverse sides as well as individual sketches which she made for her series of over eight hundred gouaches, "Life? or Theater?". Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943) painted these remarkable gouaches to tell her life story.


Charlotte presumably considered the pieces that were on show unsuitable to include in her series. The sheets were unnumbered, and in some cases she concealed the person’s face, by sticking something over it. The exhibition offered an intimate insight into Charlotte’s sense of humour and her sensitivity.

The second exhibition showed "Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama" about the first international super star. Sarah Bernhardt´s name became synonymous with acting and continued to cast a spell on players and audiences throughout the world long after her death. She was the first stage actress to appear in films.