The skies of the Bergen School

Bergen School Sky

Museum Kranenburgh lets you completely unwind this summer and fall with an exciting presentation of paintings from its own collection. This selection of works celebrates the phenomenon of sky, which is also the central theme of the exhibition “Sky” further on in the museum.

Gestel

The most famous work in the Museum Kranenburgh collection has sky as its subject: Autumn (1909) by Leo Gestel. A small painting, yet grand as a painterly experiment. A menacing Dutch cloudy sky spans a tiny landscape and takes up almost the entire canvas. Gestel painted the experience of being outdoors, at the mercy of the elements.

Bergen

Artists who settled in Bergen at the beginning of the last century were drawn by the natural beauty, the sealight, and the fresh (sea) air. The pleasure of being outdoors and working outdoors “in harmony with nature” could be fully enjoyed here, and many, once in Bergen, never returned to Amsterdam or elsewhere. Although discussions about climate and the environment were practically nonexistent at the time, there was great attention and appreciation for the beauty of nature and the power of the elements. And Bergen retained this appeal, even after the Bergen School period. For example, after the death of his mother, Charley Toorop, painter Edgar Fernhout moved into her Bergen studio, De Vlerken, and began capturing the beauty of air and light in and around Bergen in his abstract paintings.

In this collection presentation, air takes shape in a menacing sky above the polder, in a sweltering summer landscape, or in the color of frost.