WeekendTuner Guided Tours

09/12/2018

WeekendTuner team visited Nürnberg! At the Germanisches Natiinalmuseum we were happy to see the original of the self-portrait by Rembrandt van Rijn.

10/11/2018

Have you already seen, or are you planning to see, the new movie about van Gogh?
https://garage.vice.com/en_us/article/gyezym/julian-schnabel-van-gogh-biopic

Willem Dafoe won best actor at the Venice Film Festival for his bravura impression of the lauded painter in Julian Schnabel’s latest film.

31/10/2018

We can see some familiar... err... faces?

19/10/2018

How Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” gets us closer to understanding one of the unresolved mysteries of physics, and the brain mechanisms behind the magic of Impressionists’ light.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/11/13/van-gogh-starry-night-fluid-dynamics-animation/

“In a period of intense suffering, Van Gogh was somehow able to perceive and represent one of the most supremely difficult concepts nature has ever brought before mankind.”

11/10/2018

The new exhibition “National Trust — Dutch Masters from British Country Houses” at the Mauritshuis (The Hague) brings together, for the first time outside of UK, 22 masterpieces of the Dutch Golden Age owned by British private collectors.
Just in case you have some motivation left after checking out The Girl with the Pearl Earring 😉
https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/discover/exhibitions/national-trust/

09/10/2018

The first kind of knowledge ('imagination') says it's a portrait of Spinoza. The second kind ('reason') says it's likely a forgery or a mislead attribution. But what does the third kind ('intuition') say? ;)

Portrait of a man in front of a sculpture | Barend Graat, 1666 | Private collection.

Because of its striking resemblance to the face of the Dutch-Jewish thinker Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza, an early figure of the Enlightenment and author of the treatise "Ethics" (1677), as it was pictured on the old Dutch 1,000 gulden note, this painting has been—questionably—identified as the only portrait of Spinoza during his lifetime. True or false? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/portrait-one-worlds-most-influential-philosophers-180960164

27/09/2018

Today is World Tourism Day, and we’re celebrating all travelers with Johannes Vermeer’s Geographer (Städelsches Kunstinstitut | Frankfurt, Germany)—a rare example of a signed and dated painting by Vermeer, and one of the only two male portraits he left.

Sometimes considered a pendant to the artist’s Astronomer (Louvre | Paris, France), the Geographer might represent the same person—Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch businessman and scientist of the Golden Age, the inventor of the microscope and a friend of Vermeer’s. However, rather than a portrait of a specific person, it is a so-called tronie: the depiction of a social role, of a character, a type. A scientist in his study was a common topic of Dutch paintings of the 17th c.—a time of overwhelming discoveries that fascinated travelers, scholars, and common people alike. The Golden-Age Netherlands were not just a land of merchants and artists; Dutch cities counted among the most vibrant intellectual centers in Europe. Scientists and scholars belonged to the elite of the society—the circle in which Vermeers found his clients.

The Geographer seems to be tracing a route on a map. The terrestrial globe behind him, published in 1618 in Amsterdam by the Hondius family of cartographers—the same who made the celestial globe featured in the Astronomer—is turned toward the Indian Ocean, where the Dutch East India trading Company was then actively building a powerful Dutch commercial empire.

The Geographer is not focused on a book, like the scientist from a similar work by Gerrit Dou (Astronomer | J. Paul Getty Museum | Los Angeles, USA). The book seems to provide a starting point for his own reflexion: his eyes are narrowed, as if to indicate intense thinking. What about? Vermeer’s paintings never offer a single straightforward reading—hence the “mystery” he’s often quoted for. It is fair to assume that for him, science isn’t a work of mere description and calculation; it is a complex but gratifying spiritual effort of contemplation, reflexion, and imagination.

Johannes Vermeer, c. 1668-1669, oil on canvas | Städelsches Kunstinstitut | Frankfurt, Germany

07/04/2018

Yesterday we took part in the party at the Rijksmuseum ! Some spots are still available for the next party in May: check out the website of the museum!

29/01/2018

Family tour in Rotterdam at Boijmans van Beuningen. Love that museum! Here, the young participants pose in front of the portrait of Armand Roulin and show how they would love to be painted by Van Gogh.

05/12/2017

Why were Dutch artists so drawn to Paris between 1789 and 1912? What was it what they had discovered in the big, modern city? Where did they stay, with whom did they work? A temporary exhibition in the Van Gogh museum shows that. Very interesting! Till 7.01.2018

03/12/2017

Are you ready for the fifth in ?

03/12/2017

Four fragments: only one is a paining by Rembrandt, other three are made by his pupils. Can you recognize the hand of the master?

09/10/2017

Good morining from Leiden, a colorful place these days! The Japanese connection is well-established in Leiden: visit Museum Volkenkunde to see this print by Hiroshige at the exhibition , visit Japanmuseum SieboldHuis to see an amazing collection of objects from Japan, and, finally, visit the Japanese garden at the Hortus botanicus Leiden, where you'll see these bright colors. Have a great day!

06/10/2017

This is a day of mourning: our favorite mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, has passed away. An ode to him end our lovely city Amsterdam!

FYI David Bowie got this song from Jacques Brel. Love your video though :) Thanks to vnrose3 (previously lightning494) for the subtitles

06/10/2017

If you and your children love everything about sea, ships and sailors, or if you are curious about the most incredible, detailed word map in history, then this exhibition is the place to visit!
Till 31 of December in the Scheepvaartmuseum: "The World According To Blaeu".

https://www.hetscheepvaartmuseum.nl/ontdek/tentoonstellingen/blaeus-wereld-in-kaart

03/10/2017

Amsterdam is a unique city in many ways: it has, for example, the oldest Jewish library in the world, and it's still functioning! Ets Haim was founded in 1616 and you can still visit it!
Once in two or three months a tour is organized for everybody who is interested in this amazing heritage. Want to see the oldest manuscript here, that was written in the early thirteenth century and is still being used? Then come to the Portuguese synagogue in the Jewish quarter or book a tour online. During the tour you will see books that have been brought to Amsterdam by Sephardic Jews in the early seventeenth century. You will be amazed by the quality of the items. Some are about religious laws, others about the art of building ships. Sometimes they've been edited by Christians, sometimes lost for hundreds of years, but then returned to the old spot.
This tour is very interesting and informative, we can totally recommend it!
http://jck.nl/nl/locatie/ets-haim

01/10/2017

Love Haarlem!

25/09/2017

Good morning ☀️
Monday is mostly not the most favorite day of the week, but if you start it with coffee from one of these cups, I'm sure it will feel much better 😉

https://www.vangoghmuseumshop.com/en/

23/09/2017

Quizz!
Time for our weekly quiz. Who knows what kind of game was played with this object in the 17th century in the Netherlands? Good luck!

20/09/2017

"The girls from the Amsterdam orphanage going to the church" 1895. Nicolaas van der Waay.
Then a orphanage, now an incredible museum about the history of Amsterdam...

20/09/2017

Even today Amsterdam can look like this: Flying Dutchman is trying to reach its safe heaven...

19/09/2017

This morning in Amsterdam: misty, but sun will come out soon!

Photo by Julia Keijzer-Plotnikova

16/09/2017

Want to experience the Amsterdam Portuguese synagogue in its full glory? Visit one of the monthly concerts: then all the thousands candles are lit (the building has no electricity).
They have also interesting events and lectures. Find all the info at:
http://jck.nl/nl/locatie/portugese-synagoge

11/09/2017

Only 6 days left to see small wonders! Amazing that human hands could produce such miniature creations hundreds of years ago, without any help of modern technology!
In this special exhibition you can see prayer nuts or beads from the Middle Ages that are as small as a walnut and that still contain hundreds of figures! Magnificent biblical scenes unfold before your eyes, all as big as a postage stamp...
Hurry to see those wonders, you'll love them!

03/09/2017

Plantage: an Amsterdam neighborhood that is particularly known as Jewish quarter. Today we had our very first family tour in this magnificent neighborhood, full of green and amazing architecture.
The Portuguese sinagoga is definitely worth a visit: it is still lit by thousands of candles, like it was in the 17th century, when it was build for the Sephardi Jews, who had fled Portugal and Spain and came to Amsterdam: the home of the free religion.
One of the oldest botanical gardens in the world, the eldest zoo in the Netherlands, the only museum dedicated to micro-organisms: its all here. Just come and see!

01/09/2017

Ever wanted to find out how the diamonds are being grind manually and how this profession of Sephardi Jews once started in the 17th century and nowadays became a huge tourists attraction? Then come and join a daily free tour in the Gassan Diamonds. But be careful: at the end you most probably will end up wearing a huge stone at your finger 😉

01/09/2017

Dear friends, 10th of September will be the last chance to join our interactive family tour to The Hermitage museum at the Amstel. The exhibition Romanovs and the Revolution is closing soon. If you want to learn more about the last royal family of Russia and to understand what had lead to the turbulent year of 1917, this is your opportunity! Anja Ourikh will give this tour in English or Dutch. Write a pm for more information.