Van Gogh in Nuenen
In 1883, when Vincent van Gogh was 30, he moved back in with his parents (not an unusual story even now) who lived in Nuenen, a village tucked in a pocket of Brabant, the largest southern province of The Netherlands. All he wanted to do was paint.
Until 1885 when Vincent left Nuenen, he created some of his most famous paintings while there like The Potato Eaters. What was unusual was that he painted over a quarter of his total life’s work during those two years.
Hoyt and I visited Nuenen this past May and found this village delightful. The Vincenter museum is filled with replicas of some of Vincent’s paintings and a great installation about his family with portraits of relatives. In the photos here, there’s one of his mom.
In fact, all over The Netherlands, van Gogh is featured this year, most notably at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which we toured after a realllyyy long wait.
(BTW: I’ve put all the photos at the bottom of this post. See details below.)
Van Gogh home
In Nuenen, Vincent’s parents had a lovely brick house not far from the church where his father was the minister. A young woman, Margot Begemann, the youngest daughter of the family next door, loved Vincent, but some stories say Vincent only thought of her as a “friend.” You can imagine how that turned out. Not so happy for her. Vincent was married to his art.
Van Gogh 2015 – 125 years of inspiration
This year Van Gogh is the celebrated artist in The Netherlands. 125 years ago his life ended but his art lived on for us to love and study. In Nuenen, to celebrate this artist, a small film crew was making a documentary that week. The day Hoyt and I were there, not far from the museum a woman carrying a professional-size video camera approached us.
“Would you like to be in a documentary celebrating Van Gogh?” she asked.
She didn’t have to ask us twice! The lady pointed down the sidewalk to a gentleman in a navy sports coat and said he was a famous Dutch actor Jeroen Aart Krabbe, who was featured in the film. He’s been in American movies too; one is Ocean’s Twelve.
“We just want you to continue touring the street just like you were doing,” she said.
“Just don’t look at the camera,” said the director, about a foot taller than me. He could see everything. Even wearing his sunglasses. So Hoyt and I posed and tried to act natural, pointing and nodding and muttering to each other and after about ten minutes of this artificiality, the towering director said, “That’s it. Good. Very nice. Thanks!”
We were done. The film will be in the Dutch language and distributed over there, so I can’t imagine we’ll ever see ourselves. No release forms were signed and no royalties promised, but photos were taken! Hoyt asked the famous Jeroen Krabbe for a photo and the movie star, very cordial and pleasant, asked us who we were and where we lived and why we were there, and agreed to the photo. But…
“Ah, but your wife must be in my arms!” he said, motioning to me where I stood on the sidelines. Thankfully, I have the kind of husband who can laugh off things like that, and I’m the kind of person who adores her husband.
Photos in this post
My photos of paintings of and by Vincent van Gogh were taken in the Kröller-Müller Museum which also commemorated Van Gogh’s death 125 years ago with an outstanding, extensive exhibit of his work. The photo with students writing their assignments was taken there, too.
To view my photos in a slideshow, click on any one of them and after it pops up into a larger version, arrows on the right and left sides move you through the gallery. To close the sideshow, on your keyboard press the Esc button.
Hope you like this new photo gallery feature. Let me know either way, okay?
See you next time!
Rob Ruff
Great post! How many times have I said not to look at the camera! Love the outdoor cafe painting with a hint of his Starry Night stars…
Charlene L. Edge
That is one of my favs.
Elizabeth maupin
Krabbe was the bad-guy Lothario in one of my favorite movies, Crossing Delancey. Fortunately poor Amy Irving got away from him eventually. How funny that you met him!
Charlene L. Edge
It was pretty funny. So out-of-the-blue!
Ann Hicks Murrah
Love the post. AND the slideshow.
Charlene
So happy the slideshow feature worked out, too. It’s a keeper.
robyn allers
Photo feature works beautifully; really complements this fun story!
Charlene L. Edge
Good. For travel posts, especially.
This week on Aug. 6 the topic will flip to fundamentalism.
Charlene L. Edge
Yay. I like the photo feature, too. Makes my blogging life easier.
Jannie Roemeling
How extraordinary you met Jeroen Krabbé in Nuenen. He is a famous actor indeed but a painter as well, as were his father and grandfather and is his son Jasper. He made a documentary on Vincent van Gogh, 6 x 30 minutes, which is on Dutch television right now. Currently he seems to prefer painting to filming and in thos documentary both passions come together. He was in a talkshow last night telling that making this Van Gogh documentary is the best he ever did.
We will watch it on tv and look out for you, walking In Nuenen. Will let you know whether you are in or have been cut out.
Regards, Jannie
Charlene L. Edge
Hello again, Jannie,
Yes, it was a surprising chance to get in a movie! I sure hope we ended up in it but you never know…I’m eager to learn whether we did or not!
Jannie Roemeling
Hi Charlene and Hoyt,
I think you made it into the film. I think I saw you in part 1 of the Search for Van Gogh by Jeroen Krabbé. There was a scene where Jeroen is interviewing some people who might be relatives of Vincent van Gogh. That was in a café/restaurant and a shot from the inside to the street showed two people walking by. I think that was you. Could that be? Do yo remember a scene like that?
Warm regards, Jannie
Charlene L. Edge
Jannie,
Not sure those folks were us. The scene of us they filmed was on the street with us pointing to a guide-sign-tour-marker and looking around at the area. But if the woman you saw was wearing a blue top and tan pants that was probably me.