I spent about an hour and a half today at the Van Gogh Museum. I could have gone to the Rijksmuseum next door, but I thought I would get more out of concentrating on one artist than all of the Dutch Masters, especially since I'm not so into painting.

While the museum housed two floors of Van

Goghs and some paintings of his influencers, I was more interested in the museum's portrayal of Van Gogh's life.

The museum spoke very highly of him, but the overall story of his life was less than impressive sounding. According to the story board, Van Gogh failed at making a living for himself in a normal trade so he decided to be an artist. He moved in with his brother, who supported him, and then tried to learn to paint, beginning with the dark peasant portraits, and borrowing later on from Impressionism and Pointillism. He tried for 10 years to paint but never made any money with it, He then suffered from epilepsy, then depression, then suicide. If that's his story, how did this guy get to be so famous?

Besides the fact that Van Gogh sounds sort of whiny, I was surprised that none of his work really struck me - especially after hearing his life story, it just seemed like there was this ordinary quality to Van Gogh's work. Like he was a wanna-be artist who never quite got there.

Is there something in Van Gogh that I missed? Any Van Gogh fans out there?