The De Ruijterkade in Amsterdam

Van Gogh painted this view of the De Ruijterkade waterfront during his brief visit to Amsterdam in October 1885, where he had gone specifically to visit the newly opened Rijksmuseum and spend time before Rembrandt's Jewish Bride. He described standing before that Rembrandt for so long that the museum staff became concerned, writing to Theo that he would give ten years of his life to remain with it undisturbed. The Amsterdam waterfront — the De Ruijterkade running along the IJ harbour, with its working boats, warehouses, and the city's silhouette behind — was painted in the atmospheric conditions of a Dutch autumn evening, when light and water merged in the grey-blue register he had been using throughout his Dutch period. The visit to Amsterdam was both a pilgrimage to Dutch art and a practical observation trip, and the waterfront view combines both impulses. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

A waterfront in evening conditions gives Van Gogh the opportunity to explore atmospheric effects—the blurring of forms in low light, the reflection of lights on water, the silhouettes of masts and rigging against a dim sky. The palette for an evening subject is necessarily dark and restricted in hue, with the colour interest concentrated in reflected lights and the warm-cool contrasts of the darkening sky.