Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum
is one of the artistic highlights of Europe.
It was built to showcase
the art of the Dutch Golden Age.
Here we can gain insight into the industrious people
who made tiny Holland
so prosperous and powerful back in the 17th century.
This art is really all about money.
The Dutch worked hard, they were brilliant traders,
and the wealthy had plenty of money to match their egos.
Now, painters earned their living
working not for the church or the king,
but by painting portraits for local big shots.
The great Dutch painter Rembrandt --
this is a self-portrait at age 22 --
earned his money painting portraits.
These Dutch masters -- actually the drapers' guild --
all paid equally and expected to be portrayed equally.
Wearing the standard power suit of the day,
it's as if someone walks in and grabs their attention,
natural as a snapshot.
In Rembrandt's "Night Watch", we see another group portrait.
But rather than the standard stiff pose,
this one bursts with energy.
It's the local militia,
which was also a fraternity of business bigwigs,
a kind of rotary club of the 17th century.
They tumble out of their hall, weapons drawn,
ready to defend their city.
While creative and groundbreaking
in its composition, some of those who paid the artist,
like this guy, were probably none too pleased.
This self-portrait of Rembrandt at age 55
shows a man who's seen it all
and woven those experiences into his art.
Rembrandt did more than paint for big egos.
In this painting,
the prophet Jeremiah laments the destruction of Jerusalem.
He slumps in defeat, confused and despondent.
Rembrandt's use of light to highlight certain details
set him apart from other artists of his age.
The Rijksmuseum has four rare
and precious paintings by Johannes Vermeer.
Here, the master of tranquility and stillness
shows an intimate street from his hometown of Delft.
In this quiet painting of an ordinary milkmaid, Vermeer,
who brings out the beauty of everyday things,
creates a scene where we can almost hear the trickle
of the pouring milk.
Perhaps for the first time, art catered to the tastes
and budgets of middle-class people, too.
Smaller canvasses by no-name artists
that a regular merchant could afford
and hang in his living room.
The work of Jan Steen offers a delightful slice
of 17th century Dutch life.
No preachy religious or political themes,
just light entertainment with a dose of folk wisdom.
Here, children teach a cat to dance,
mischief on their delighted faces.
But their father's upset that they're wasting time.
And in Steen's "Merry Family," the parents party
while their kids copy their irresponsible behavior.
The girls learn to drink,
and the little boy picks up smoking.
The note warns -- "Parents beware,
your children are learning from your bad behavior."
Amsterdam has a long tradition of welcoming the persecuted.
When the Netherlands won its independence
from Catholic Spain back in the 1500s,
the Dutch government outlawed Catholicism.
But locals here conspired to give Catholics
a place to worship, provided they kept a low profile.
This 17th-century merchant house
looks normal from across the canal,
but inside is a hidden Catholic church.
Called Our Lord in the Attic,
it dates from 1661,
when post-Reformation Dutch Catholics
were forbidden to worship in public.
Imagine this small church crammed with worshipers.
It's like a grand church in miniature.
An entire museum is dedicated to the work
of the great Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh.
The Van Gogh Museum,
laid out as a stroll through the story of Vincent's life,
shows how intimately his life
and art were intertwined.
Van Gogh grew up in poor, rural Holland.
From the start, he had an affinity for working people.
In paintings like his "Potato Eaters,"
a painting as dark and grainy as the soil itself,
he gives these farm laborers
the same dignity Rembrandt gave to merchants
and aristocrats.
As a young man, Vincent was very religious.
He studied to be a pastor
and did church work in poor communities.
But this wasn't his true calling.
He decided to paint,
to capture the world he felt so intensely on canvas.
He moved to Paris, and the "City of Light"
opened up a whole new world of color.
Vincent hobnobbed with the Impressionists.
He studied their bright colors,
rough brushwork, and everyday scenes.
He painted shimmering reflections like Monet...
café snapshots like Degas...
still lifes like Cézanne...
and self-portraits like nobody else.
But Vincent longed to strike out on his own.
In 1888, he headed for the south of France,
arriving just as winter was turning to spring.
Energized by the sun-drenched colors and the blue, blue sky,
in just two years,
Vincent produced an explosion of canvases.
His unique style evolved beyond the Impressionists.
Thicker paint, brighter colors,
and swirling brushwork
that made even inanimate objects pulse with life.
Vincent's ecstasy alternated with depression.
Eventually, he was admitted to a local hospital.
His letters home told of his great loneliness.
While in the hospital, he found peace
painting calm scenes of nature.
But he also wrestled with his inner world,
capturing spiritual scenes with surreal colors,
twisted forms,
and dark outlines.
In this, one of his last works,
the canvas is a wall of thick paint,
with roads leading nowhere
and ominous black crows taking flight.
Overwhelmed with life,
Vincent walked into a field
like this one and shot himself.
At the Anne Frank House,
visitors learn the story of eight Jews who, in 1942,
went into hiding.
They went behind this secret swinging bookcase,
into the attic above a shop,
and hid almost silently for two years.
Among them was 13-year old Anne,
whose journal has inspired millions of people.
You'll see how Anne's father, Otto,
tracked the progress of the allies after D-Day.
And pencil lines tracking
how Anne and her sister were growing up in hiding.
Anne's room is still decorated
with photos and magazine clippings,
showing the idols, dreams,
and passions of a 13-year-old girl.
A small window letting in a splash
of the outside world lifted her spirits.
Then, one fateful day, the Gestapo came.
All eight were deported,
sent east to concentration camps.
Only her father survived.
Anne died just weeks before the end of the war.
Her handwritten diary inspires visitors,
and her book has been translated into 70 languages.
Visiting the Anne Frank House
humanizes the horror of the Holocaust
through the story of just one of six million victims.
Nearby, the Dutch Resistance Museum
takes you behind the scenes during the Nazi occupation
and tells how the Dutch fought back.
Pistols were hidden in books.
With this corset, stuffed with ration cards,
a woman who looked pregnant
helped feed both hidden Jews and resistance fighters.
And courageous moms with strollers
did their part, as well.
Resistance fighters falsified IDs.
This student, wanted by the Nazis,
disguised himself as a woman.
While the Germans confiscated all radios,
the Dutch secretly got their news from England
via miniature radios.
This one's hidden in a matchbox.
The suffering was horrific.
Many starved.
And many barely survived on a diet
of tulip bulbs.
Rick: So your grandparents actually lived through this.
Rolinka: Yeah, the winter of '44-'45 was called the "Hunger Winter,"
where people in the cities were starving,
and they started to eat tulip bulbs
just to have something in their bellies.
Grandparents starved so that children could live.
And that entire generation of people
is actually shorter than their countrymen.
Today, we eat well,
and our young people are the tallest in Europe.