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…
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.
Landscape in Drenthe
In this drawing from October 1883, Vincent van Gogh probably captured the vast panoramic landscape of the Verlengde Hogeveensche Vaart between Holsloot and Nieuw-Amsterdam.
Van Gogh had already seen this landscape earlier that month, when he travelled by tow barge from Hoogeveen to Nieuw-Amsterdam. It took about six hours for the tow barge to cover a distance of thirty kilometres. Vincent wrote to his brother Theo that he arrived in Nieuw-Amsterdam early in the evening, after ‘sailing for an eternity’. He had been drawing on board. This is clear from the sketches in one of his letters to Theo. Van Gogh was enthusiastic about what he had seen en route.
‘How I wish we could walk here together and paint together. I am convinced you would be taken in and won over by the country.’
In 1883, this area was still in various stages of peat extraction and reclamation. There were still large swathes of open heathland where herds of sheep grazed. The landscape is much different now. It has now been cultivated and made into agricultural land.
THESE VISTA PANELS ARE PART OF THE THREE SIGNPOSTED VAN GOGH CYCLING ROUTES.
THE ROUTES CAN BE DOWNLOADED AT
