Endless Heathland

“One feels, when one travels for hours and hours through the region, that there is really nothing but that earth, infinite; that mold of grain or heath, that sky, infinite… One feels nothing more, no matter how grand it is in itself—one simply knows there is ground & sky,” wrote Vincent van Gogh about his walk on November 1st, 1883, back to Nieuw-Amsterdam/Veenoord.

Although the area still offers vast vistas and endless skies, the landscape has changed drastically since 1883. At that time, Drenthe was famous—and to some, infamous—for its endless heathlands. “When one thinks one has reached the end of the heath, the heath begins again… gloomy… solitude upon solitude,” wrote the Italian Edmondo de Amicis in 1874. The heath was only photographed when it was already beginning to disappear. Fortunately, the heathland of Drenthe was frequently painted. Van Gogh captured it in his watercolor Landscape with a Farm. Jacoba de Graaff (1857–1940) painted the same feeling of “nothing but ground and sky.”

What Vincent saw still lives on. In 2023, 140 years after his arrival in Drenthe, singer Martijje wrote the song Wat Vincent zag (What Vincent Saw). A musical ode to the landscape that touched him so deeply. You can listen to the song in Dutch here.

 “And now, when evening twilight fell—imagine the silence, the peace of that moment!”