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'You don't get any closer to Van Gogh'
The world-famous painter Vincent van Gogh spent two years in Nuenen. But what really kept the painter busy? Where did he live? Who did he surround himself with? Anyone who would like to truly get to know him can visit the Van Gogh Village Museum in Nuenen from May 2023. The Regiodeal contributed € 435,000 towards the construction and furnishing of the brand new museum.
December 1833. Thirty-year-old Vincent van Gogh crosses Nuenen's village street Berg. Shortly before, he returned from Drenthe to his parents. From his parental home he walks to the town hall, where he registers at the registry office. He is not yet a well-known painter, but that will soon change....
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To honor that history, Nuenen has had a museum since 2010, originally under the name Vincentre. That museum was located in a beautiful spot: opposite the painter's parental home and in the former town hall where he once registered. There was one drawback: the museum was too tight. Volunteer and guide Hans Keijzer: "We received about 20,000 visitors a year. With only two toilets and one coffee corner, Vincentre soon outgrew its space. When a busload of visitors would arrive, the circulation was dramatic.'
New Building
Was there no better way? 'As a region, we are responsible for Van Gogh's cultural heritage,' says director Simone van der Heiden. 'Next to the Vincentre was a vacant lot. We looked into the possibility of expanding our museum with a new building.' But this required funding. Fortunately, all sorts of large and small parties stepped up to the plate. Simone: 'Eventually the money from the Regiodeal made the budget financially viable. After the renovation of the town hall, the construction of the new section and a breach between the two buildings, Queen Maxima cut the ribbon in May 2023. The Van Gogh Village Museum was born.
Stories
Guide Hans was thoughtful about every brick and space. Even before the architect began drawing, he gave him an extensive tour. 'You can't draw something appropriate until you know the stories behind this place and Van Gogh,' he states. 'I urged the architect: make something that makes people feel they are getting very close to Vincent.' The result is a contemporary building whose lines closely resemble the long-gabled farmhouse that stood there during Van Gogh's time.
Stories make a more lasting impression
And inside? The new museum literally has more room for stories. Hans: "Think, for example, of the friends Van Gogh used to teach. Previously these canvases hung on a corridor, now they have been given a separate room. This allows visitors to really take in these works in peace and quiet.'
His masterpiece The Potato Eaters is also better displayed than before. "Of course not the final version, which hangs in the Van Gogh Museum. We distinguish ourselves by sharing the stories behind his paintings. On a separate floor we tell more about The Potato Eaters and who the characters are. One of them is Sien, his muse who appears in many other paintings."
A look inside his mind
As the icing on the cake, in Vincent's Light Lab, made possible by ASML, visitors can learn in just one hour what Van Gogh learned in a few years. 'Here you experience to look at light and color as if you were a painter. What effect do the two have on each other? How can you experiment with them?'
Visitors who walk out feel they really know the painter. They have learned about his fluctuating mental well-being, the personal letters to his brother Theo, the difficult relationship with his father and about the strong bond with his mother. 'When his mother broke her hip, she couldn't go to church. 'Then I will bring the church to her,' the painter must have thought. His painting 'Going out of the Reformed Church in Nuenen' hangs in the Van Gogh Museum. But the story that goes with that painting is not told there. We tell it here, in Nuenen.
It doesn't get any closer to Van Gogh!