2023-09-01 16:26:00
“Here comes the madman,” the inhabitants of Nuenen whispered to each other when they met him. Taciturn, with tousled red hair and a freckled face under his felt hat, he always carried a rucksack full of painting supplies over his shoulder. The eccentric was on his way to paint houses and landscapes in gloomy colors. He wanted to portray farmers, maids, shepherds, peat cutters and weavers in what was then a destitute area in what is now the Dutch province of North Brabant.
Today, Vincent van Gogh in Nuenen would no longer be described as crazy – on the contrary. It’s more like being hailed as some kind of pop star. His portrait stares at you in souvenir shops from cookie jars, fridge magnets and sofa cushions. His legendary sunflowers, starry sky and cornfields adorn barbecue aprons and other utensils.
One of his most famous pictures, the “Potato Eaters” created in Nuenen, has been reproduced as a sculptural ensemble and installed in the city park. On the village square is a bronze figure of the artist who oscillated between genius and madness.
With mask: In Nuenen, a bronze figure is reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh
Quelle: Getty Images/BSR Agency
also read
From 1883 to 1885 the painter worked in Nuenen; in the Museum Vincentre this time is brought back to life audiovisually. You can hear the clatter of looms, the grinding of mill wheels and the ringing of bells. From old, now computer-animated photos of the Van Gogh family, visitors look at serious faces – including the strict father Theodorus van Gogh, who was a Protestant pastor.
The first stop on the bike tour in Brabant is Nuenen
Van Gogh was the eldest of six children and the black sheep of the family. None of his professional attempts were to succeed, neither as an assistant teacher in England, nor as an art dealer in Paris or as a lay preacher in the Belgian coalfields.
And his dream of becoming an artist was marred by absinthe crashes, failed amorous love affairs, rows with his family and a chronic shortage of money. He is said to have sold only one painting in his lifetime, today most of his works reach astronomical prices in the tens of millions.
We decide to discover the world of van Gogh in a typically Dutch way and rent a Fiets in Nuenen, one of those rickety but indestructible retro-look Dutch bikes. We start on a section of the 435-kilometer Van Gogh Fietsroute, which connects the Van Gogh locations in Brabant.
Source: Infographic WORLD
The first stop is the old vicarage in the dollhouse-like village center where van Gogh lived with his parents. He had improvised a studio in the laundry room in the extension. In the parish garden you can take the artist’s perspective by standing where Vincent made several depictions overlooking the pond and the Clement’s Church. Nuenen was a fertile period for the artist. A quarter of his complete oeuvre, which included around 2000 drawings and paintings, was created here.
But living with his parents, who disapproved of his artistic ambitions and bohemian existence, was anything but harmonious. In a letter to his brother Theo, his only confidante, Vincent complained: “They are afraid to take me into the house as if it were a good idea to have a big mangy dog at home. The dog only regrets that he didn’t stay away, because it wasn’t as lonely on the heath as it was in this house.”
Where Vincent van Gogh found motifs for his paintings
Vincent consoled himself by starting an affair with the neighbor’s daughter, Margot Begemann. In the front yard of the house called Nune Ville is a bust of the young lady who separated from the painter after a failed suicide attempt. Before that, in the sweetest of times, she had often accompanied van Gogh in search of motifs.
also read
On these tracks you can cycle into the surrounding area. As in an open-air museum, there are natural sites and buildings to be discovered that Vincent immortalized. The path leads through the nature reserve Het Broek with its swampy grassland, poplars and alders. Here van Gogh collected bird’s nests, which he depicted in his still lifes.
On the way there are buildings that have become motifs: among other things, the De Roosdonck windmill, the Coller water mill or the water mill near Opwetten, in whose rustic restaurant you can now take a break with bitterballen, which are crispy Dutch meat croquettes, and home-brewed Watermolen beer.
The cycle path shines like the “starry night”
For a special experience on the Van Gogh bike tour, cyclists have to wait until it is pitch black. Only then does a 600-metre-long section of the cycle path between Nuenen and Eindhoven light up in colors and figures that are intended to evoke the famous painting “Starry Night”, created in Provence in southern France.
The Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde designed this passable homage by incorporating thousands of colored stones into the pavement, which store the light during the day and begin to sparkle like a fairy tale at night.
Zundert is another stage in van Gogh’s life and work in his native region. At the location of the old vicarage, where he was born in 1853, this informs Vincent van GoghHouse about the painter’s childhood and youth. He lived in Zundert until he was sixteen. As the son of a Protestant pastor, he was already an outsider in the Catholic village as a child and was homeschooled.
In Zundert, where the artist was born, the Vincent van GoghHuis provides information about the painter’s childhood and youth
Quelle: picture-alliance / dpa
In the garden behind the museum, his mother instilled a passion for nature in him. His father preached in the Protestant church, and Vincent’s brother of the same name, who died a year before the painter was born, is buried in the cemetery. The former sexton’s apartment now houses an artists’ residence with an exhibition room.
Church windows in Etten-Leur commemorate the artist
The town of Etten-Leur is 16 kilometers away. On the way there: well-kept Dutch gardens, sales tables with tomatoes, strawberries and blueberries fresh from the field. The route also leads through the nature reserve De Pannenhoef with its restored moors, where Vincent van Gogh caught his first impressions of nature in his early years.
Vincent stayed in Etten-Leur from April to December 1881, where his father had taken up a new pastorate. Here he practiced as an artist for the first time. His stay is documented in the Van Gogh Dutch Reformed Church, where nine stained windows show the elements of his drawings he made in Etten-Leur, including ears of corn, flowers, clods and church towers.
They were mainly sketches in which he captured the meager everyday life of farmers and craftsmen. This is where the first depiction of a sowing farm worker was created. He later developed the motif further during his Provence period into the colour-intensive oil painting “Sower at the setting sun” in the typical yellow tones.
Original works in the museum in ‘s-Hertogenbosch
For Van Gogh fans, ‘s-Hertogenbosch should be a highlight of the search for a trail. The one there North Brabant Museum Of course, it cannot compete with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Kröller-Müller Museum near Arnhem, which house the largest Van Gogh collections in the world.
But the house shows at least a dozen original works, five of which are in his own possession. A new section gives insight into the master’s time in Brabant.
also read
As an overture, visitors are greeted with a film projection of Brabant landscapes dear to van Gogh, now accompanied by poems by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, winner of the 2020 British Booker Prize for Literature. And then we stand in front of original paintings that show locations that we saw on our bike tour, such as the old vicarage in Nuenen or the Coller mill near Eindhoven.
The museum does not hide the tragic end of the painter genius. Photographs show the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence to which van Gogh committed himself after deliriously cutting off his ear (some historians say it was an earlobe) following a dispute with fellow painter Paul Gauguin.
On July 27, 1890, he shot himself in the upper body in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris and died two days later. He was only 37 years old, a short life but an eternal work that began in Brabant.
“Van Gogh – On the threshold of eternity”
Vincent van Gogh does not have it easy: he has already painted more than 100 paintings. But there is no success. Frustrated, the artist sets out for the south of France. To a small village called Arles.
Source: WELT / Alina Noeth
tips and information
Ride a bike: The Van Gogh cycle path network is 435 kilometers long and consists of ten signposted sections. Route descriptions with GPX data for navigation on the smartphone are available for download (vangoghbrabant.com).
Accommodation: Van Gogh atmosphere in the listed old weaver’s cottage “Kostershuisje” in Nuenen, double room from 175 euros/night (kostershuisje.nl). The “Kazerne” housed in an old barracks and fire station in Eindhoven shines as a “Home of Design”, with an adjoining art gallery, double rooms from 162 euros (kazerne.com). The boutique hotel “‘t Keershuys” is located in the historic district of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, double rooms from 150 euros (keershuys.nl).
Information: visitbrabant.com/de; holland.com
Participation in the trip was supported by Visit Brabant and the Dutch Tourist Office. Our standards of transparency and journalistic independence below axelspringer.de/unabhaengigkeit.
This article was originally published in September 2021.
#Netherlands #footsteps #van #Gogh #bike #path #lights #night