Wandering through Vincent van Gogh's Brabant

Landscape, farming life and artisan weavers photographed 1865 - 1920

Ronald Peeters and Emy Thorissen

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King’s Commissioner of North Brabant writes in the foreword:

‘Vincent was an artist’, is what I once wrote in the bid book for the
Van Gogh National Park. But not only a painter, the unrecognised
genius of his time, he was also a brilliant writer. He also laid
bare his soul in his letters. His struggles with art, people and
incomprehension. There is, however, one subject that he keeps
returning to, Brabant and its people, the Brabanders. That Brabant,
the Brabantine countryside of heather, streams, woods and fens, has
not been lost in the course of time.
There is more than those reminders of Vincent, tangible in the
recently established Van Gogh National Park. Images and letters that
bear witness to them have been preserved. Photos that show how
accurately Vincent observed his surroundings, the Brabant of that
time. This beautiful and important book combines Vincent’s words
with images from his time. He becomes our guide to his Brabant, to
our Brabant, because that’s also the challenge, to preserve Vincent’s
Brabant with all of his lieux de mémoires - realms of memory - for
the future, whilst dealing with change.
Wandering through Vincent van Gogh’s Brabant is a window into
the eternal past that, despite everything, still remains tangible, in
Vincent’s words and paintings, in the Van Gogh National Park and,
of course, in this book!

Wim B.H.J. van de Donk
King’s Commissioner of North Brabant