View of Amsterdam from Central Station

In October 1885, Vincent van Gogh took the train to Amsterdam for three days, mostly to stand in front of the Rembrandts and Frans Halses at the Rijksmuseum. He was still living in the Dutch countryside then, painting peasants and potatoes in browns and greys, a full year before Paris would flood his palette with colour. He worked fast on this trip, on small panels. He told his brother Theo that he painted one of these little views in the station waiting room, killing time because he had arrived too early for his train, and another in the morning before the museum opened at ten. This is one of those hurried panels: the wet city, the grey water, a smear of daylight over the rooftops.