Scan barcode
A review by laurieb755
Van Buuren - Museums & Gardens by Isabelle Anspach
3.0
This summer my husband and I visited the Van Buuren house and gardens! It is a well preserved homage to art deco, color, simplicity (as in not ornate), design, and glorious gardens. As part of the house tour there is a wonderful video that meshes photos, stop-motion characters, text and (if I recall correctly) audio, and it appealed equally to us as adults and to our grandchildren, ages 9 and 11 1/2.
We purchased this book to learn more about the people and the place. I would easily have read (and perhaps will look for) more biographical information on David and Alice van Buuren as I found them intriguing based on the content of the video. This book includes a brief biography but not enough to sate my curiosity. As the title says, there is plenty about the house museum and the outdoor gardens, which are many and a delight to explore. Suffice it to say, our grandchildren were delighted by the maze!
Capturing my attention on the tour (and included in this book) are the colorful carpets, the downstairs rooms filled with ample natural light, many of the light fixtures (especially the magnificent one in the hallway, suspended from the second floor ceiling and hung alongside the staircase), and several pieces of art.
The first of my two favorite paintings is The fall of Icarus, a piece we had just seen several days earlier in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium), which had a room devoted to paintings by Pieter Bruegel. In the van Buuren house I immediately noticed that the painting was quite similar but not identical to the one we saw in the museum. David van Buuren spent 20 years in search of this painting, however, after reading the book I learned that analysis of the painting (using techniques not available in van Buuren's time) showed the painting to likely be by Pieter Bruegel the Younger and not Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
The second piece that caught my eye was Woman thinking by Kees Van Jongen. Mounted on a wall in the house is not the original but a photograph of the original. In 2013 the original was stolen! This article includes a picture of the painting as well as details about the "artnapping."
If you are interested in art deco or a house that has, in accordance with the bequeathal of Alice van Buuren, been maintained exactly as it was throughout the time the van Buuren's lived there, you will likely enjoy this book.
We purchased this book to learn more about the people and the place. I would easily have read (and perhaps will look for) more biographical information on David and Alice van Buuren as I found them intriguing based on the content of the video. This book includes a brief biography but not enough to sate my curiosity. As the title says, there is plenty about the house museum and the outdoor gardens, which are many and a delight to explore. Suffice it to say, our grandchildren were delighted by the maze!
Capturing my attention on the tour (and included in this book) are the colorful carpets, the downstairs rooms filled with ample natural light, many of the light fixtures (especially the magnificent one in the hallway, suspended from the second floor ceiling and hung alongside the staircase), and several pieces of art.
The first of my two favorite paintings is The fall of Icarus, a piece we had just seen several days earlier in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium), which had a room devoted to paintings by Pieter Bruegel. In the van Buuren house I immediately noticed that the painting was quite similar but not identical to the one we saw in the museum. David van Buuren spent 20 years in search of this painting, however, after reading the book I learned that analysis of the painting (using techniques not available in van Buuren's time) showed the painting to likely be by Pieter Bruegel the Younger and not Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
The second piece that caught my eye was Woman thinking by Kees Van Jongen. Mounted on a wall in the house is not the original but a photograph of the original. In 2013 the original was stolen! This article includes a picture of the painting as well as details about the "artnapping."
If you are interested in art deco or a house that has, in accordance with the bequeathal of Alice van Buuren, been maintained exactly as it was throughout the time the van Buuren's lived there, you will likely enjoy this book.