The world's largest collection of Van Gogh's work — around 200 paintings and 500 drawings — hung in roughly chronological order, so you walk through the arc of his short career: the dark Dutch peasant studies, the Paris years, the explosion of colour in Arles, the unsettled final months in Saint-Rémy and Auvers. Letters between Vincent and his brother Theo are quoted throughout, which gives the rooms an unusual intimacy.
The neighbouring works by Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet and Millet put him in context, both as inheritor and influence. The Gerrit Rietveld building from 1973 and the Kisho Kurokawa wing from 1999 are themselves worth a look. Buy timed tickets online well in advance — the queue without them is brutal, and same-day tickets routinely sell out.