Kroller Muller Museum 2

There were two large rooms of Van Goghs, nearly all from the last 4 years of his life (he only painted for 10), with paintings he admired sprinkled here and there as well as the usual explanatory comments to his brother and confidant Theo. The overall title of the exhibit was "Van Gogh & Co." Oh, and since I am usually the first to complain, the lighting, both natural and artificial, in this museum was exemplary. Everything was under glass, but you had to examine it closely and carefully to tell....

Potato-eaters, 1885

Pink peach trees, 1888

Cypresses with two figures, 1889-90

Patch of grass, 1887

Vicki, studying, 2015

Bridge at Arles, 1888

Landscape with wheat sheaves and rising moon, 1889

Wheat field with reaper and sun, 1889

Wheat stack under a cloudy sky, 1889

Still life with straw hat, 1881

Still life with meadow flowers and roses, 1886-
1887

Four sunflowers gone to seed, 1887

Carpenter's shed and laundry, 1882

Le Moulin de la Galette, 1886

Terrace of a cafe at night, 1888; new personal
favorite and pretty much the emblem of the
museum

Still life with a plate of onions, 1889

Portrait of Joseph Roulin, 1889 (the local
postman)

Sorrowing old man (At Eternity's Gate), 1889

Self-portrait, 1887

Kroller Muller Museum 1

Ohne die Umlaute. We have seen our share of great "individual" museums--collections of one person or perhaps a family, then donated to the state or otherwise made public: the Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, the Wallace Collection in London, the Rockox House or the Mayer van der Bergh in Antwerp. The Kroller Muller, near Otterlo, Netherlands, certainly ranks with these, particularly for its post-Impressionist works.

Helena Kroller-Muller, daughter of a wealthy German industrialist and married to an equally wealthy Dutch industrialist, was perhaps the first female art collector of means--incredible means--and she used her wealth to amass one of Europe's great collections. Some 12,000 items. She and her husband Anton Kroller donated it all eventually to the Netherlands in 1935. Part of the donation was the land they had purchased, some thousands of acres, to become a national park, housing the collection and museum. It is all now in the Hoge Veluwe National Park, near Otterlo. She was perhaps the first collector to realize the importance of Van Gogh, and the Kroller Muller contains more works by Vincent than any other museum...except the one in Amsterdam. If you love Van Gogh, you have to see this place! First, I'll post a few non-Vincent pix, then will post a selection of the incredible Van Goghs in this collection.

It is first of all a national park, in Netherlands, and here is one lot of the 1700
free bicycles (each with a kiddie seat) provided for visitors (we tried: Vicki
gave up, unscathed; I persisted, not unscathed)(my Mal de Debarquement issues)

Entrance to museum

Characteristically unpretentious

We always head for the gift-store first; I was comforted by
the presence of Unemployed Philosophers' Guild dolls--but
there was no Vincent with the removable velcro ear!

Still processing this one

Size 10, please

Never miss a Cranach; here, the Virgin with Baby J and the bees...
wait, no...

Van Cleef's Building of the Tower of Babel

Moving right along, Monet's Studio Boat

A Renoir Vincent admired

Fantin-Latour's portrait of Eva Callimachi- Catargi

Picasso's Violin; OK, here we have skipped over room after
room of Mondriaans, etc.

Leger's Soldiers Playing Cards

Vicki really liked the Jan Toroop--here, Fatalisme--which shelikened to Art
Nouveau

Kindness Of Strangers, Again

It is one of the cliches of travel, I know, and we have been the beneficiaries so many times.... En route to Schokland, crossing the former Zuider Zee, one of those red warning lights came on on our Fiat's instrument panel. Slow down, stop when you can, look at the owner's manual. Wait a second, the owner's manual is in German!

We camped at the de Voorst Recreatiepark, near Schokland, and the hostess and host there were kind enough to translate the relevant owner's manual pages--we have yet to meet a Nederlander who wasn't fluent in at least three languages--and then to refer us to a nearby independent garage. The mechanic there dropped everything, Saturday morning, came out and hand-drained the water out of the Fiat's diesel fuel filter, smiled and said "No charge...have a nice day!" Kindness of strangers! Thanks!

In the De Voorst Recreatiepark

Schokland Museum 2

Continuing our visit to a remarkable little museum...

Vicki touching actual mastodon parts

At least 7 foot tall Ice Age bear--Ursus Really
Horribilis

Cast of neolithic human remains

Paleo tools

Neolithic settlement depiction

Neo foot print casts

Neo pottery

Largely intact Neo canoe

More recent archaeological finds

Wooden shovel

Waders

Mini sleigh

The usual mannequin diorama; we think it's an important part
of the museum experience to participate in these displays...

Propeller from an RAF Lancaster bomber that came down in
the vicinity

Not the only plane that came down in these parts...here, a
B-17E, whose crew hopefully walked away and were rescued
by Dutch Resistance

Interior of the beautifully reconstructed little church

And finally, today's wedding photo shoot

Schokland Museum 1

Schokland was an island in the Zuider Zee, and the waxings and wanings of the North Sea since the middle ages enabled it to be variously a fishing village, a fortress, an abandoned fortress, a fishing village, a destitute fishing village, then, by royal order in 1859, an abandoned destitute fishing village. The sea was too dangerous and unpredictable. Prior to the middle ages (much prior), it was high, dry land, with much evidence of paleolithic and then neolithic human habitation, plus, earlier habitation by your standard Ice Age and post-Ice Age varmints...giant bears, sabre-tooth tigers, wooly mammouths, etc. Presently, Schokland, well inland, is home to the Schokland Museum, perhaps the smallest of all UNESCO World Heritage Sites, but the first of Netherands' many sites to be so recognized. It is a succinct but powerful statement of what the Zuider Zee was like, of the Zuider Zee Works, and of their aftermaths. It's a longer day trip from Amsterdam, but worth it in every respect. The 15 minute video presentation (in English too) is excellent.

In olden days, prior to 1932, it was here

Aerial view, nowadays, from which you can see the outlines
of the old island; in the north-east polder, north of Flevoland
(did you know that Flevoland was named after ancient Flevo
Lake, which was named after Caius Julius Flevo, a Roman
who explored and wrote about the area?)

Another view, driving up, you can see the tiny island mass
rising above the sea (now grass)

Entrance

Approaching the entrance to the tee-niny museum

Netherlands is flat partly because it is the estuary of the Rhine
and associated great rivers; and partly because the glaciers
from Scandinavia scoured the land; these are glacial erratics
from Norway

Thus; amazing the things you find when "reclaiming" land

View of the museum; the church, a few house-structures, the
restaurant, the reception...

Coastal artillery...the coast now way out of range

Ditto

Remnants from the old cemetery

Important previous flood levels...it was the 1916 flood that
provided the impetus for the Zuider Zee Works; also the fact
that technology was now up to the task

Shipwrecks, other archaeological sites in the immediate vicinity
of Schokland

Start of the excellent video on Schokland and the Zuider Zee
(and in English, too)

Driving The Zuider Zee

If you are of my generation, you heard about the Zuider Zee, as I did, in elementary school. It is that southern arm of the North Sea that invades the Netherlands and whose wild ways flooded cities and towns and villages and killed hundreds of thousands over the centuries. Marken was an island in the Zuider Zee; now it's more or less an island in the Ijsselmeer (or more properly, the Markermeer), the vast fresh water lake that the Zuider Zee became when finally dammed off in 1932. A later and larger dam was constructed much further north in the mid-20th century. And amidst all this, land was created ("reclaimed"), specifically Flevoland, home now to nearly half a million people and untold millions of cows. We've seen the dikes and dams and waters on previous trips, but I wanted to see and learn more, specifically at the Schokland Museum, part of the northeast polder, north of Flevoland. Thus, our crossing.

Beginning the drive over the dam near Enthuizen; that's a concrete canal we're
driving under; everything has the lookof the massive engineering feat it was

Pretty typical of the 30 or so mile road over the dam; that's the Markermeer on
the right; on the other side is the bigger part of the Ijsselmeer; boats and ships
everywhere

And now we are looking at reclaimed land, in the northeast polder, just north of
Flevoland; Flevoland itself amounts to somewhat less than 600 square miles