Tribute to 'Keukenhof'
Mar 21, 2020
In spring 2015 I got a request from an American Facebook friend and fellow Zendrawing artist to meet in 'Keukenhof' -the colorful exhibition of flowers and tulips near Amsterdam- as he was visiting Holland for the first time. Even though I have lived very close to 'Keukenhof' all my live, I never visited this colorful exhibition of flowers, so I accepted his invitation. Besides seeing my friend, I also loved to go to this magnificent exhibition for some inspiration and to do some on the spot drawing and painting.
In case you have never heard of 'Keukenhof': this is one of the main tourist-attractions of the Netherlands, like the canals of Amsterdam, the windmills of Kinderdijk and Rembrandt's paintings. Every spring more than a million visitors from all over the world visit this exhibition to see a wide variety of magnificent flowers, mostly tulips, beautifully arranged by color.
So on a beautiful sunny day in May, we had a fantastic day in 'Keukenhof' and despite all those thousands of people from all over the world, the energy was lovely, bright and surprisingly calm and the colors and flowers were magnificent. This day made a lasting impression on me and the park turned out to be a fantastic place for inspiration and painting.
Since then, I thought about going back to 'Keukenhof' several times. But just like the Japanese garden in a previous post, the short period of time that this exhibition is open to visitors makes it a challenge to find the right time. So before I knew it, every year, the spring season was over and the exhibition had closed it's doors again. But last year I made a solid commitment to myself to visit the exhibition in 2020 and to get inspired by this 'typical Dutch' flowers again.
Unfortunately the most unexpected thing has happened, as in spring of this year, the Corona virus holds the world in its ugly grip. This surreal reality we are now living in here in Holland has forced this magnificent flower exhibition to close it's park to the public until an unknown date in time. Having been to the park on that beautiful sunny day in March 2015, I understand what a dramatic situation this must be for the park and all it's employees and business partners that have been working hard for months.
Up to today the Corona virus has resulted in lots of people having lost their lives, their love-ones, jobs and livelihoods and has hurt businesses all over the world. 'Keukenhof' is no exception and It is not unthinkable that the park will not be able to receive any visitors at all this year. All the planning that has gone into planting all of those millions of bulbs, arranging them by color and making sure the flowers will flower at the right time and in the right intervals, all that work might not be seen by anyone.
For this reason I wanted to write this small tribute here on my Blog and show people what Keukenhof looked like 5 years ago.
Just click on the photographs here to see them in the original size. Above you see the flower beds that give the park that fairytale look and feel. Below you see some of the flowers in detail, aren't they just beautiful?
If you love to draw or paint on location, this magnificent flower exhibition really is a fantastic place to go to, so lets hope it will be able to open its gates this year. In the park with its thousands of visitors every day, you will have to accept you are not always alone, but as you can see in the photograph at the top of this page, I was not disturbed at all and took my time to create several paintings. Tulips are a lovely subject for watercolor painting: they have a rather simple shape, have a variety of lovely colors and a simple stem and are easy to paint by heart.
The good news is, that in times like this people become creative. So yesterday 'Keukenhof' officially announced to 'virtually' open its doors by uploading a new video of the park and its flowers every day. This way people can still get an impression of what the park and flower-displays look like day by day. For those of you that are now forced to stay at home, this can be a great way to enjoy the beauty of all those magnificent flowers. If you would like a virtual tour of 'Keukenhof' please click here>
