20 Meters High

This graphite pencil drawing ‘Royal Estate ‘De Horsten’ (From Lilac Mountain) – 16-07-14’ shows a special place. A true mountain in our otherwise flat country. Or is it? Well, probably nothing more than a pimple, rising up 20 meters from the face of the earth. Even for someone like me, coming from Nijmegen and its surrounding hills, it’s pretty low. However, in the Haaglanden area it stands out even though it’s tucked away in this estate. Owned by the royal family by the way. I like being there once in a while. It has a variety of landscapes to offer. There are open meadows, a forest with little canals running through. There is even a dike you can walk on, towards Voorschoten.

Lilac Mountain

Maybe one of my students pointed me to this Lilac Mountain and I didn’t take notice the last time I went there. Anyway, out of season because the lilacs had already finished blooming since May. Nevertheless, the climb was worth the view and so I made a sketch. First and foremost, the view is pretty spectacular. You can oversee the entire landscape. Somehow, I was caught by the open space in the middle belted by treelines.

Big and Small

There is a danger I want to point out to you. Doing such types of landscapes often are not interesting because they lack reference how far something is. An artist can solve it by introducing a repoussoir. An example of this can be found in a Meyendel drawing of last year. This time I didn’t have a tree branch sticking out in the front. Instead, I waited for two people walking on the path below. They offer the viewer perspective on how big or distant things are in this little drawing. In 2026 I sold it to a dutch collector.

Graphite pencil drawing (Pentel 0.5 mm, 3B) on Winsor & Newton paper (14.8 x 21 x 0.1 cm – A5 format)

Artist: Corné Akkers

Sales info: info@corneakkers.com

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