Petrus van der Velden

Netherlands / Aotearoa New Zealand / Australia, b.1837, d.1913

Windmill by Moonlight

  • c. 1888
  • Charcoal on paper
  • Anonymous gift, 2008
  • 775 x 635mm
  • 2008/031

“The greatest of all lessons is to learn to see. Many are ‘colour blind’ till they have their eyes opened to nature’s lessons, which she is always trying to teach us. But we must always tell what nature says to us, simply and directly without pretence or falsehood. Tell the Truth. Christ was the greatest artist. His words and pictures are a simple telling of nature's lessons – they are always the Truth. ‘We reason with colours. Colours are dead’, but by telling what nature teaches us the dead colours enable us to express the wonders and beauties of the Creator’s work.”

—Petrus van der Velden

(McCahon / Van der Velden, 18 December 2015 – 7 August 2016)

Exhibition History