Combining Classic & Modern at the Dordrechts Museum

I love it when a museum merges both classic and contemporary. And the Dordrechts Museum in the Netherlands does just that.

Firstly, a lovely garden and outdoor scene pave the way to the museum – a building that combines both old and new – a brick facade with unique glass elements.

Once inside the Dordrechts Museum, there isn’t much in terms of English text but you are given an English language brochure which describes each of the paintings within the permanent collection (a definite help!).

In the first rooms, you’ll learn about famous artists from the area and see their beautiful landscape and still life paintings.

What I really loved about the museum is that there are these drawers (see below) in many of the rooms in which smaller scale paintings and sketches are housed. This allows you to get up close and personal with the artists on display at the museum.

And again (below) you can see how these drawers are placed in a very modern manner just below an ornately framed painting.

You’ll also see a small display on how the detailed, gold frames are handcrafted.

Furthermore, you’ll immediately notice that each room has a different theme or demonstrates a different Dutch artist from a specific time period. The decor of each of those exhibits further demonstrates the time period of that particular artist.

Take for instance this room with beautiful wallpaper. This is the Aert Schouman room – a painter from the 18th century. In addition to showing Schouman’s bird paintings, you’ll also see some stuffed birds behind a glass panel, bringing Schouman’s work to life.

One of the highlights of the museum were these really cool ‘glasses’ you get to put on. We instantly felt like we were in some kind of sci-fi movie of sorts.

The purpose of these funny looking glasses soon became apparent to us; when you look down into the bottom of the glasses, there is a mirror and in this mirror you can better see the detail of the painting on the ceiling above you. The detail is just below your nose! Plus it’s so much better for your neck instead of craning it and staring upwards at the painting on the ceiling!

Thereafter, we moved on to the Holland op z’n mooist or ‘Holland at it’s most beautiful’ exhibition.

Holland op z’n mooist. Het voorjaar van de Haagse School from Dordrechts Museum on Vimeo.

This exhibition is also divided into themes such as landscapes, fishermen and farmers. And what I really liked about the exhibition were the inspirational quotes on the walls (albeit only in Dutch).

But my overall favourite part of the museum was yet to come…

The final exhibition we viewed was an interactive house of a fictitious artist – a completely different experience to what we had just seen.

Here you can lounge around and put yourself literally into the shoes (and mind) of an artist.

You get to take a pen and a post it note and write something inspirational on a wall. There were some pretty artsy sayings on there which made for interesting reading material.

There are also some funny props whereby you can dress up and have a little bit of selfie fun.

But then things start to get a little bit weird as you enter the toilet of the artist’s house…

And as with most good art, you are left thinking about the purpose thereof…

The Dordrechts Museum was an eye-opener; a beautifully arranged museum offering something for everyone. This is a museum that not only shows you the beauty of art from the region but it also lets you actively partake, not as a viewer but as an artist yourself.