Visiting the Kroller-Muller Museum near Renkum

Perhaps my favourite Van Gogh

Getting ready to visit the fantastic Kroller-Muller Museum and finding out about the difference between fine art of the 16th and late 19th/early 20th Century!

The Kroller-Muller museum focusses on impressionist and post impressionist art. It has a million Van Goghs (exaggerating) and a useful number of Monet, Pissarro, etc and some fantastic sculptures including a Moore. This art was put together by an extremely wealthy German-Dutch industrial family in the early part of the 20th century (you guessed it the Kroller-Mullers!). All this was given to the Dutch Government when they went broke and includes 6000 ha of land which has been converted into a fantastic nature reserve.

The land is a moraine deposit from the last Ice Age. During the Middle Ages was over-grazed (sheep and people what a deadly combination) and ended up with large parts that were basically sand dunes. The Kroller-Mullers bought it as a hunting reserve. Now it is home to a wide diversity of wild vegetation and animals with the feature animal being a large European Red Deer.

The Kroller-Muller home is an interesting example of Art Deco but I still prefer the Heidelberg Town Hall.

Perhaps a model of Mokoan in terms of restoration, not the Red Deer! Also, get someone to whack a few hundred Brackes, Whiteleys and Nolans into the Yacht Club.

It is interesting to ride through such extensive areas of wild countryside which is such a contrast to neat and tidy extensively cultivated or urbanised Holland.