Amsterdam fetes the artist

AMSTERDAM -- Yvonne Zumpolle pauses for a moment, wrinkling her nose at the telltale smell.

"Ooof," says the grimacing tour guide, momentarily overpowered by the cloud of marijuana smoke emerging from a nearby "coffee house," as the local smoke houses are known. "Now that's something Rembrandt wouldn't have experienced here."

Indeed, Amsterdam's ongoing experiment with legalized marijuana doesn't date back nearly as far as the 1600s. But as Zumpolle points out during a midday walking tour, just about everything else in the historic center of this famously tolerant city, from the enchanting tree-lined canals to the soaring medieval churches, would look pretty darn familiar to the legendary Dutch master.

"Even the prostitution was here, though it didn't look quite like this," says Zumpolle, motioning toward the vixen-filled windows of the infamous Red Light District, which incongruously occupies several streets in the oldest -- and most touristy -- part of town.

Dating to Holland's Golden Age in the 1600s, Amsterdam's lovely (if sometimes sinful) center, a place of cobblestone streets and gable-roofed homes that oozes Old World charm, has long been one of Europe's most alluring destinations. But this year Zumpolle and others in the tourism business here are bracing for a new surge in interest as the country celebrates the 400th birthday of Rembrandt van Rijn, its most famous historical resident. It's a celebration that, like Rembrandt's best-known painting, the wall-size Night Watch, already has all the markings of an extravaganza.

"There's never been a time when you could see so much Rembrandt in one place," boasts Boris de Munnick, an official at the world-renowned Rijksmuseum, which plans no fewer than five Rembrandt shows before the commemorative year is through.

The museum, which is undergoing renovations through 2008, will unveil its biggest show, the much-awaited Rembrandt-Caravaggio, on Feb. 24 at the adjacent Van Gogh Museum, which has more available space. It pairs 13 of the rarest Rembrandts, borrowed from museums around the world, with equally monumental works by the era's other great master of the dramatic lighting technique known as chiaroscuro.

De Munnick, lounging on a bench just steps from Night Watch, the museum's crown jewel, notes that the institution also has brought out its entire collection of 19 Rembrandt paintings for the first time in its 121-year history. (They'll remain up through Feb. 19.) Normally, 14 at most are hanging.

Still, the Rijksmuseum offerings are just the beginning of what can only be described as Rembrandt madness. Tourism promoters, hoping to boost foreign visitation by as much as 250,000 people this year, have helped arrange events at half a dozen other venues across the city, from the Rembrandt House to the Jewish Historical Museum. Hotels and restaurants, meanwhile, have rolled out special Rembrandt packages and menus. And there's even the biographical Rembrandt: The Musical, premiering July 15 at the Royal Carre Theatre.

The art-heavy festivities come as the options for Rembrandt-loving tourists grow in a city often touted as much for its liberal attitudes toward prostitution and marijuana as its rich cultural heritage.

Six years ago, Rembrandt's longtime home and studio, just a few streets away from the city's main square, reopened after being meticulously restored to its appearance of 1656 -- the year Rembrandt declared bankruptcy and was forced to move into more modest quarters. A detailed, room-by-room inventory taken at the time allowed historians to reconstruct the living quarters in minute detail.

"Rembrandt's bad luck was our good luck," says Rembrandt scholar Ed de Heer, who oversees the stately three-story house museum, where visitors now can stand in the spot where Rembrandt painted such masterpieces as A Woman Bathing in a Stream.

Chatting in a new wing built in 1998 to house a massive collection of Rembrandt etchings, de Heer grows excited as he talks about the museum's own 400th anniversary show, Rembrandt: The Quest of a Genius, opening April 1.

Like many Dutch masters of the 1600s, Rembrandt often peddled his paintings straight out of his house, and his spacious, marble-floored entrance hall usually overflowed with his latest work. But de Heer says even Rembrandt would be surprised by the sheer number of his paintings that will hang on the home's walls during the show.

"It's usually difficult just to get one Rembrandt" on loan from other museums, he says. "But because of the celebration, we've been able to get more than 50 of them."

On one level, of course, the city-wide Rembrandt celebration can be seen as just another savvy campaign to draw tourists. But the year-long fete also reflects the nation's genuine pride in its native son, and its desire to show off the depth of its cultural offerings.

"Amsterdam always has been different things to different people," says tourist official Conrad van Tiggelen, over tapas at 4-month-old Envy, the city's newest minimalist hot spot. "But there's a lot more to it than the Red Light District."

Envy, located in the stylish "Nine Streets" canal area, dotted with clothing boutiques, used-book stores and cafes, is just the latest high-style outpost in a city increasingly known for its cutting-edge design and architecture.

Chockfull of bars, clubs and marijuana-selling coffee houses, Amsterdam also continues to grow as a mecca for fun-seekers. Van Tiggelen says as many as 20% of visitors are college-age kids.

But the city's historic sites and museums, which revolve around the triumvirate of Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh and Anne Frank, always have been the bigger draw, says Van Tiggelen.

Of the three, Rembrandt dominates. Around the time the artist first moved to the city from nearby Leiden in 1624, Amsterdam was at the height of its power, a trading giant that was fast becoming the wealthiest city in the world. And many of Amsterdam's biggest tourist attractions have at least some sort of Rembrandt connection.

The Rembrandt House Museum, the first stop on a new, self-guided Rembrandt Walking Tour created for the anniversary, is just down the street from the Old Church, where Rembrandt buried his wife.

Tour guide Zumpolle also likes to show off The Waag, the turreted medieval gatehouse where Rembrandt would watch surgeons give anatomy lessons (the inspiration for his famed The Anatomic Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp). And she takes visitors to the waterfront, where just a year before Rembrandt arrived a fleet of Dutch ships cast off for the New World, founding New Amsterdam (now New York).

Leiden, Rembrandt's birthplace, also plans commemorative events this year. Just 30 miles from the city, it will host three Rembrandt shows and has a new walking tour (many tourists visit in a day; the 30-minute train ride is about $8).

Still, it is Amsterdam, where he spent the majority of his life, that expects the biggest influx of Rembrandt-seekers -- particularly Americans, who have had a long love affair with the city. Only the English visit more.

"Americans are very curious, and they love learning about the history," says Zumpolle, stopping in the Rembrandtplein, a bustling plaza with a towering statue of the artist.

"Van Gogh, they don't know too much about, but Rembrandt? Rembrandt they love."

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