After a long and very busy week, yesterday’s outing was a real treat: It started around 10am when friends Hayley and Gavin invited us on a day trip to the National Park Hoge Veluwe. This park is a real gem of The Netherlands as it consists of 5500 hectares of unspoilt woodlands, grassy plains, sand drifts and is the natural habitat of deer, mouflans (goats) and wild boars. The best way to see the park is by bike of which there are hundreds of free ones at your service, especially for park visitors. We all hopped on one each and set off to explore our surroundings. The air was so beautiful and reminded me very much of the fresh air of the West Coast of Canada. I was in heaven as I rode past moss-covered rocks, baby pine trees and thousands of lofty conifers. The most bizarre and beautiful of all was the sand field which just appeared before our eyes after riding through a few kilometres of thick forest, it was as if we had ridden on through a travel machine which had taken us right into the sahara…
As if that wasn’t enough to captivate us, right in the heart of the parkland is the Kröller-Müller Museum which houses an extensive collection of works by living and long gone artists, including some 200 paintings by Vincent van Gogh.
Two artists who tantalised my artist taste buds were Tom Claassen …
and Anselm Kiefer…
images from White Cube.
Although things got a little obscure with Anselm when we all discovered that he had used his sperm in one of his sculpture creations. Needless to say before we walked away in shock we all took a look at this masterpiece.
There is also a world famous sculpture garden within the museum grounds that we did not get time to visit but we are all keen to go back in warmer weather, take a picnic and spend a long lazy afternoon amongst the forest surroundings. Thanks again Hayley and Gav for a fab day out!
all other images courtesy of the Kröller-Müller Museum
Anselm Kiefer work is truly stunning! Beautiful and inspiring post one again…
February 24th, 2008 | #
oh that museum is magical!
February 25th, 2008 | #
Thats why I love you Pia! You have tremendous style and taste. I love those “pebbles” I want one of those! That pic of the 2 women about to land over them demands a double take. I had to look closely.
And that decorative face painting! Like I said, saw it and I knew you’d appreciate it. My fave is the one of the girl with the red cross on her face and sun-ray like brush. Glorious.
February 25th, 2008 | #
This gallery sounds amazing. http://indigoalison.blogspot.com/2008/01/anselm-kiefer.html
If you are ever in Berlin go to the Hamburgerbahnhof It is wonderful. The link is to some photographs I took there.
February 25th, 2008 | #
oh that’s awesome alison! we have similar taste in art is seems – i like your photos of his work. i will definately check that gallery out when i am in berlin px
February 25th, 2008 | #