Now you're at Wijken van Eleveld. The water channels, also called ‘wijken’, date from the peat time and are still present here in their original state. Around 1883 the landscape must have had many of these types of channel structures. With the rise of agriculture and urbanisation, the channels were often filled in. It is a truly wonderful area to meander through. The Pesserdijk runs from here to Hoogeveen. An old road that Vincent may have walked on his wanderings around Hoogeveen.
Van Gogh lo…
Now you're at Wijken van Eleveld. The water channels, also called ‘wijken’, date from the peat time and are still present here in their original state. Around 1883 the landscape must have had many of these types of channel structures. With the rise of agriculture and urbanisation, the channels were often filled in. It is a truly wonderful area to meander through. The Pesserdijk runs from here to Hoogeveen. An old road that Vincent may have walked on his wanderings around Hoogeveen.
Van Gogh loved to paint working people in nature. But he had great difficulty finding models from the local population. The Drenthe farmers and labourers weren't at all used to modelling for a painter and thought it was very odd. They just laughed. The people of Drenthe had other things on their minds, they needed their time to make sure there was food on their plates again that evening. Because Van Gogh found it difficult to connect with Drenthe's inhabitants, he often felt quite lonely.
