My five year old son has touched a Van Gogh masterpiece. His little fingers have caressed the exuberant brush strokes of a depressed genius. He has experienced what many art lovers have only dreamed of.

Lucky kid huh?

So how did this come about? How did he get so lucky? Did he win a competition? Was he selected on a whim? Nope. None of the above.

My mum was visiting from the UK and suggested early one Saturday morning that she’d love to visit the Van Gogh Museum, having last been there decades ago. Not one to miss out on a cultural excursion I leapt at the idea…”I’m sure it’ll be fine with the kids, we’ll take the stroller for Noah.”

So that’s how we found ourselves outside the fabled museum in Amsterdam on a Saturday morning, the queues already stretching around the block.

“Damn, I knew we should have booked our tickets online” my husband grumbled.

“Look on the bright-side” I replied, with an optimism I didn’t quite feel, “at least it’s not raining!”

Tickets Please!

The system works like this: there are three queues for the Van Gogh Museum. The one for pre-booked tickets. The one for museum cardholders. And the one for people who buy a ticket at the door. The pre-booked queue moves the fastest. The ticket-at-the-door queue moves the slowest…in fact it hardly moves at all. And there is a direct correlation between the speed of the queue and the level of smugness on peoples’ faces.

But a word of caution: when you pre-book your ticket online, you have to book a specific time slot. If you miss that time slot and arrive late, you are relegated to the back of the ticket-at-the-door queue. These people went from smug to bug in three seconds flat, put in their place by stern museum staff. It was a great hour’s entertainment. As museum cardholders we got in for free, otherwise a ticket costs 17 euro for adults and kids under 18 go free.

Treasure Hunt for Kids

I’d heard about the treasure hunt for kids, and thought this would be the perfect way to keep a five and three year old engaged and interested. A quick visit to Information and we were given our treasure maps and pencils. Our task was to locate certain paintings throughout the museum, write down their titles, and at the end selected letters would make up the keyword that would earn us a prize.

What I hadn’t bargained on was the level of excitement and sheer enthusiasm with which my kids would embrace their task.

Question 1: Can you count how many self-portraits show Vincent Van Gogh wearing a hat?

A simple question. Chaos ensued.

“I SEE ONE!!”

“HERE MAMA HERE!”

“ANOTHER ONE OVER THERE!”

Children darting, weaving, ducking. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

And so it continued, room after room, floor after floor. Hurried consultations to decipher the next clue, followed by a mad rush to locate the painting in question.

The Sunflowers passed by in a blur, yellow and magnificent.

Parisian street scenes tugged at the corner of my eye, their elegance pouring into the room.

And as I legged it past Almond Blossom I was reminded of my cell phone cover at university. I’d loved the blue tones, the happy little white flowers, delicate yet powerful.

Almond Blossom (1890)

A Close Encounter

We were doing well. Only two clues to go. But things always start to unravel when the end is in sight. The penultimate clue was a snippet from a famous painting, The Reaper. As we scrutinized the clue we could make out a blue sleeved arm, a gnarled hand gripping a wooden handle, blue sky and yellow wheat, the thick paint full of movement.

Sawyer glanced around the room, searching furtively, and as his eyes alighted on the prize he caught his breath and started running. At that exact moment Noah decided he’d had enough and plonked unceremoniously down on the floor, the novelty well and truly lost. I knew I had a spit second to decide which child to follow: the one taking his shoes off and rolling around; or the one making a single-minded beeline, arms outstretched, towards a low-hung, very unprotected Van Gogh masterpiece.

“SAWYER WAAIIT!” I yelled.

But it was too late. The Reaper seemed to move through the room towards us and time stood still. The paltry knee-high guard wire no match for one with his eye on the prize. Pointy finger. Triumphant finger. Finger and paint. Paint and finger. Priceless finger on priceless paint. And a smile so big, so satisfied, so proud.

Down in the cafeteria after the boys had collected their prizes, we regrouped. When my Mum found us a while later she looked enchanted, absorbed, in love.

“Wow, that was just incredible” she breathed. “Did you guys get to see much?”

“Sort of.” I mumbled, taking another gulp of wine.

The Bedroom (1888)

Have you ever had a hair-raising experience with your children in a museum? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and let’s have a chuckle together!