Rijksmuseum, which is popularly known as the Museum of the Netherlands is one of the most loved museums of Amsterdam. The weekends during the summer season is the peak period of the museum which is when travelers across the globe choose to go on a Rijksmuseum Tour.
Most of the visitors already know the secret to visit this attraction without a lot of fuzz – getting there early to avoid the long queues to buy tickets. Most people who come to visit this place arrive here before 11 am, to avoid the long queues and rush.
Museum of the Netherlands – The Rijksmuseum
The Museum of the Netherlands was closed until this year as part of the major renovation it underwent, and that too, for ten years. The museum was then reopened in April and welcomed the massive crowd to it after its opening. There are a lot of collections of some of the popular pieces of Dutch art and these are housed within the walls of the museum. Along with this, visitors can also explore various other things inside the museum.
Visitors need to keep their backpacks and other overly sized bags in the lobby of the museum to get entry to the museum. The most interesting thing about the museum is that visitors are allowed to take cameras with them inside the museum. An estimate of seven days is the time a visitor might take if he/she is planning to explore everything about the museum, according to tour guides.
The museum is a four-storied building that houses a huge number of artforms from the 1100s to the present time.
Great Hall and the Famous Paintings
To start exploring the famous section of the museum on the second floor that houses works of the artists Vermeer, Rembrandt, and some other famous names is a good idea for the visitors. The second floor of the building can be accessed by the stairs; it can also lead to the Great Hall. This is regarded as the busiest area of the Rijksmuseum where the famous work “Night Watch” is exhibited – it is showcased inside a beautiful room.
You can find a lot of art lovers in this area who stand in front of the same paintings to grasp in the details of these paintings, which is what makes this area a bit crowded with people waiting for their turn in the queues. This rush and waiting are two of the major reasons for a visitor to arrive early at the museum if they look forward to exploring the museum a little more peacefully.
The Bibliotheek Library
The library of the museum – Bibliotheek, is also located on the second floor of the museum and it was renovated recently to make it look like a 19th-century reading room. The floor to ceiling of the library was lined using books and various other materials for research. The library is multiple stories high and has a staircase that most people die for.
The Famous Sculpture Gallery
This most favorite part of the Rijksmuseum for most travelers is the sculpture gallery – known as beeldengalery in Dutch – which is located on the second floor of the museum. The sculpture that is pictured here is titled “Frenzy” and it is the statue of a woman who pulls her hair out in a fit of madness stood in an institution that is for the mentally ill.
Modern Art
After exploring the second floor of the museum, visitors usually move along the top level, which is the third floor of the building. Keep in mind that the floor levels start at zero, instead of one, in Europe. Every artwork that is housed on the top level of the museum is from the early 1900s to the present time.
There is a lot to see at this level, from numerous paintings and big replicas of airplanes. The collection of facial masks of the Nias islanders, taken during the early days of the twentieth century is what most people find interesting in this area. They were collected by anthropologists to study various physical features of human beings which embodies the ethnic differences among various groups.
Special Collections at the Rijksmuseum
After exploring the top level of the museum, the best option for visitors is to get back to its ground floor which is where the special collections of the galleries can be found. Visitors can find almost everything in these galleries from jewelry and ship models to clothing and several other forms of Dutch art.
People can easily spend more time on the ground floor than the time they think they could spend. Most visitors are often fascinated to explore various things that are on the display at this level of the building, and this is what is loved the most by a majority of visitors.