Fresh from the Garden
On display at Hofwijck
Constantijn Huygens on People, Gardens and Nature
Hofwijck, with its shady elms and avenues of pine, was a place where poet, composer and diplomat Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) was able to escape the pressure of Hague political life. But his garden was much more than just a quiet place to relax. As Huygens wrote in his famous poem about Hofwijck, the garden embodied a multifaceted vision of people and nature.
Poems about gardens were very popular in the seventeenth century. In poems of this genre, poets evoked gardens in their ideal form. In Huygens’ poem about Hofwijck, which is more than 2800 lines long, nature is a source for inspiration and consumption. It is a place to marvel at and control nature.
Here, enjoyment and control of nature went hand in hand. At Hofwijck, nature had room to flourish, while also serving the people who lived here. The garden as a well-ordered idyll, a tamed wilderness.
Juul Hondius. Dapes Inemptea
In Huygens’ idyllic garden there was little talk about protecting nature. But centuries have passed since, and nowadays a truck occasionally rumbles by on that awful motorway.
Photographer Juul Hondius (b. 1970, Ens) wakes us with a start, bringing the climate debate to Hofwijck. The slogans are not what you might expect. We are exorted to boom aen boom staen (‘stand tree to tree’), a banner advertises Gratis maaltijden (‘Free meals’) and activists are called Adam and Eve. Are we losing our paradise on earth? Constantijn Huygens’ poem Vitaulium Hofwijck expresses a love and fear of nature. This contrast becomes painful in Hondius’ photographs, which evoke contradictory feelings and pose a question that is difficult to answer: what is nature worth to me
Hofwijck is part of a complex and confusing reality. We think we known the banners and slogans of climate protest, but what happens when those images find themselves in the setting of a photogenic country estate? What do we think and feel then? How relevant is Hofwijck in this rapidly changing world?
The texts in this exhibition were written by guest curators Caroline Baetens and Kornee van der Haven of the Department of Literary Studies at Ghent University (Belgium).
A book by Kees van der Leer and Henk Boers about Constantijn and Christiaan Huygens and Hofwijck, entitled “Huygens en Hofwijck. De vindingrijke wereld van Constantijn en Christiaan Huygens” (available in Dutch only) has been published to coincide with this exhibition. It includes a reworking of Huygens’ poem Vitaulium Hofwijck by Ton van Strien. The book is available in our museum shop.
The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Faculty of Arts & Philosophy and the Special Research Fund of Ghent University (Belgium).
