Immersed in Van Gogh

"I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate."

Vincent Van Gogh

The Van Gogh immersive experience begins as soon as you walk in the door and are greeted with a wall of sunflowers, or, I should say, a larger-than-life Van Gogh-like depiction of them. A few steps away is a bust of the painter that morphs from black and gray shadows to the swirled blues and lavenders of his flowers.

You pass a re-creation of the room at Arles, complete down to the washstand and window and hat hanging from a peg on the wall. Take a photo of the room and you've created a masterpiece.

There are videos on the artist's life, his hospitalization, self-mutilation and eventual suicide. And there is music: Vivaldi's Four Seasons, something by Debussy, others I couldn't place, all soaring and emotive.

But the best is saved for last, when you walk into the final gallery and find yourself a part of the paintings. You stand or sit or recline on the floor while the art comes alive around you, pages slide off easels, stars explode in the night, and a hundred sunflowers bloom against a lapis lazuli sky.