Kinderdijk

Pastel and Colored Pencil on paper

16 x 20

Kinderdijk is a village in the Netherlands in the province of South Holland and located about 15 km east of Rotterdam.  Like much of the Netherlands, it is situated in an area that lies below sea level, and the only line of defense between the town and an inundation of the North Sea are an elaborate system of dikes.  To drain the land, a system of 19 windmills was built around 1740 and this group of mills is the largest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands. 

There was a great deal of grumbling and complaining when I arrived at this site with the group I was traveling with because the morning was overcast and there was a drizzling rain beginning to form as we boarded a little boat to began a slow tour among these magnificent old structures.  Suddenly the rain stopped and the most incredible light began to shine through the clouds.  It was a clear and translucent light, the kind that you might expect to see in a Vermeer painting, and it illuminated the entire sky and silouetted the windmills against it.