Non-glossy Amsterdam by the Dutch Impressionist

I hope all of you have ever seen photos of Amsterdam. They present the city as something sunny, doll-house-like, cute and forever cheerful, making it an ideal touristic attraction. And, yeah, milliard bikes, soft drugs, Red District, and backpackers with their huge cameras here and there. Internet is full of pictures like these:

Here is a cheerful cyclist crossing the one of numerous canal bridges. They haven't just shown a great crowd of other cyclists with their bells ringing, trying to get through  dense tourist groups. 

Here is Rokin, one of most disgustingly crowded places in A'dam... Looking like the paradise, I think, they've shot it in the 6 a.m. at the morning. 

I live in Amsterdam and I must say that such views can be seen rather rarely. I mean blue skies and the absence of people (especially in the case of Damrak - the street leading to the Central Station cannot be empty in any place of day and night). Most days, A'dam weather is much more gloomier and there are a lot of chances that you will be soaked in the rain when you arrive here even in the midst of summer. And the weather changes very often, so you need all kinds of clothes here. 

But what is the real, not glossy, not touristic A'dam? I think, the art shows us more of the real Dutch capital than any pictures from guidebooks and touristic web sites. Especially if this art is Impressionistic.

George Hendrik Breitner was the well-known Impressionist artist and one of the first pioneers of photography in the fin du ciecle Netherlands. He made very real-life pictures of A'dam, especially at evenings and autumn-winter seasons. They look quite realistic and I must admit that I see the A'dam the same as Breitner saw it - in the brown-gray-dark palette.  Here are his works - that I could find in the Internet. However, if you are in A'dam, you can see them in Stadelijk Museum which has recently been opened after the long restoration. 

The Dam Square and the Nieuwekerk. 

Only horse-driven trams have disappeared and have taken place to the electricity-driven ones of the other blue-white design. 

Rokin as it was in the end of the 19th century. Less crowded, but still gloomy. 

A'dam in the winter. A very cheerful winter scene with beautiful ladies in furs. 

Breitner's works, despite of their gloominess, are rather lively, because they always depict people on the streets. Hasty strokes of the painting brush reflect the perpetual movement of the city. And I think these pictures really show A'dam as it was in the past and it is now. We can only replace ladies in elegant dresses with hipster girls and horse-driven trams with more modern ones, plus add bikes and we'll get the real A'dam as I see it now, in the mid-October.