Art: June 2008 Archives
Last Sunday we went to the Kroller-Muller museum in the Hoge Veluwe. I had such a great time that I've been nervous about writing about it in case it tarnishes.
They have Seurats! The neo-impressionist paintings were my favourite, including the Pissarros. Another artist who was striking, yet weirdly not tied to any one style was Jan Toorop. After seeing his work I had to go Google him.
The current exhibition of photographs running alongside the main collection, entitled Nature as Artifice was really fascinating. The photographers use different techniques to capture the Dutch landscape, ranging from creating dioramas of the landscape and photographing it as if it were real to attaching a camera to a kite and taking photos by remote control at precisely the moment when the landscape becomes abstract. Again I found the secondary exhibition to be more interesting than the main collection, maybe because it's more current.
I was pretty stunned when I saw that there are paintings dating from 550 AD! I wonder if those people who painted them ever thought that there would be people standing looking at their work in a building so far removed from the monasteries of the 5th century? We are all so contained in our own 'now' that this as a possibility just seems absolutely surreal.
Not as surreal though as the discussion we had cycling back to the car park where we listened to the birdsong and then wondered aloud whether town birds go on vacation to the country in the summer ...
The museum cafe is lovely (beware the richness of the chocolate cake, but order the ham and cheese sandwich as the ham is some of the nicest I've ever tasted) and the surroundings are beautiful and unspoiled. This specific Sunday afternoon was part of one of the nicest days of my life. I started off depressed about Africa and spent the morning in tears but by the afternoon it had all turned to sunshine. Later on there was icecream- mine was melon, pear and peach and then we watched Juno. It's a nice movie but a bit overacted.
And for the next 52 Sundays, (more or less), take a look at this website (Dutch only, sorry). It's the website linked to a great book that takes you for a walk and a meal every Sunday to unusual locations in the Netherlands and Belgium. Now just to decide where to go this Sunday!
Also I have to share the Verve kick I'm on right now ...
They have Seurats! The neo-impressionist paintings were my favourite, including the Pissarros. Another artist who was striking, yet weirdly not tied to any one style was Jan Toorop. After seeing his work I had to go Google him.
The current exhibition of photographs running alongside the main collection, entitled Nature as Artifice was really fascinating. The photographers use different techniques to capture the Dutch landscape, ranging from creating dioramas of the landscape and photographing it as if it were real to attaching a camera to a kite and taking photos by remote control at precisely the moment when the landscape becomes abstract. Again I found the secondary exhibition to be more interesting than the main collection, maybe because it's more current.
I was pretty stunned when I saw that there are paintings dating from 550 AD! I wonder if those people who painted them ever thought that there would be people standing looking at their work in a building so far removed from the monasteries of the 5th century? We are all so contained in our own 'now' that this as a possibility just seems absolutely surreal.
Not as surreal though as the discussion we had cycling back to the car park where we listened to the birdsong and then wondered aloud whether town birds go on vacation to the country in the summer ...
The museum cafe is lovely (beware the richness of the chocolate cake, but order the ham and cheese sandwich as the ham is some of the nicest I've ever tasted) and the surroundings are beautiful and unspoiled. This specific Sunday afternoon was part of one of the nicest days of my life. I started off depressed about Africa and spent the morning in tears but by the afternoon it had all turned to sunshine. Later on there was icecream- mine was melon, pear and peach and then we watched Juno. It's a nice movie but a bit overacted.
And for the next 52 Sundays, (more or less), take a look at this website (Dutch only, sorry). It's the website linked to a great book that takes you for a walk and a meal every Sunday to unusual locations in the Netherlands and Belgium. Now just to decide where to go this Sunday!
Also I have to share the Verve kick I'm on right now ...
