Les Nabis from Hermitage Petersburg on display in full glory on the Amstel

As big as the music hall is! So then, this Russian was puissant rich. Moreover, he had good taste. Perhaps he was also visionary, because what he bought later turned out to be of great importance to art history.

The new exhibition 'Gauguin, Bonnard Denis. A Russian love of French art' shows what he collected. And he was not alone. Sergei Shchukin was another art collector who was equally captivated by modern French art at the turn of the last century. Most of the canvases in this exhibition are from Morozov's collection, and sometimes hang next to Shchukin's. They are probably turning over in their graves if they had ever known. The two men were vastly different, but they both had a great passion for French art at the time. They were both often in Paris and both focused on Les Nabis. The complete Nabis collection from the Hermitage in St Petersburg was flown over to Amsterdam - a rare loan.

Musicians

And now you can just go there without a (plane) trip. Also to hear music in that music salon again, as the Hermitage invites many (young) musicians there. Including a weekly concert on Wednesday afternoons.

But of course, it is mainly about Les Nabis: artists who were inspired by the Impressionists and sought a new way of painting. In turn, the Nabis (meaning 'prophets' in Hebrew) influenced artists like Picasso and Matisse. In this sense, their name is retroactively accurate. Les Nabis abandoned impressionism. With Monet, Manet, Degas, Cezanne, Gauguin and consorts had as their starting point the impression of a moment - and catching it on canvas. Gauguin was already striving more for the depiction of the invisible and for simplified forms. That is why, by way of opening (and referring back to last year's Impressionist exhibition), three beautiful paintings by him hang here.

New road

Felix Valloton, Edouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Ker-Xavier Roussel and Pierre Bonnard formed an intimate group of friends who pushed art in a new direction. And this around 1900, a time when art was in full swing.

Les Nabis were more aware that the painting is ''a flat surface covered with colours in a certain composite order'' (according to Maurice Denis). Canvas and paint then had to evoke a feeling or mood. That was what it was all about. The Symbolists started with that. There are already some canvases of that. The search for the unconscious and mysterious is central in them. Nice example is Eugene Carriere's ''Moonlit Night at Montmorency'' from 1897. And so hang more misty landscapes that exude tranquillity and grand visions.

Les Nabis felt the same way. They also used photographs for their paintings. Photographs that could capture the moment even more than sketches and thus had their influence on the composition. Bonnard's 'Morning in Paris' and 'Evening in Paris' are fine examples. Although there was no leader in the group, after seeing the exhibition, Bonnard is definitely the master of the Nabis. As he painted ''Spot in Paris'' in 1905. All atmospheric enigma in beautiful, covered colours. How wonderful that to enjoy such a small masterpiece you can simply go to the Amstel. The subtle piano sounds of contemporaries Debussy and Ravel, which can be heard 'on stage', complete the picture.