Women on the Peat Moor

Vincent van Gogh is world-famous. Did you know that in 1883, Van Gogh spent three months living in Drenthe? This was a short yet significant period in his life. Here, he developed his passion for painting.

Artist friends recommended that Van Gogh visit Drenthe to be inspired by the primeval landscape and the Drenthe peat labourers. There are vista panels just like this one in various locations throughout the Drenthe landscape. Looking through the panels, you look into the landscape as if through Vincent van Gogh's eyes standing in the places that inspired him.

Women on the Peat Moor

Vincent van Gogh would often sketch a scene first. He would use this sketch later, in his room, to create a painting. This is what he did here. This panel shows several versions of the same scene. You can see the same bent-over women in all three versions. He often experimented with different compositions to see which one was the best and most appealing.

The women in the painting are probably gathering dried peat sods. The brown and white drawing shows the so-called kienstobben - bog wood. These are fossilised remnants of wood that have been preserved in the peat. Van Gogh must have made the drawing here, in the Veenoord area. This type of bog wood occurred only in lowland fens such as the those near Veenoord in the past. There are no lowland fens here nowadays. But if you pay close attention, you can see that the meadow is quite a bit lower than the road because the peat was extracted from there.

THESE VISTA PANELS ARE PART OF THE THREE SIGNPOSTED VAN GOGH CYCLING ROUTES.

THE ROUTES CAN BE DOWNLOADED AT