By MT Woollaston and to where we’ll soon be heading to avoid busy roads and the diversions caused by the still broken highways on the South Island. 

Alain de Botton in his book ‘The art of travel’ argues that the way we see new places as we travel is influenced by how artists choose to depict them. In a visit to French Provence he sees corn fields and pine trees that might otherwise escape his attention if it were not for the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. 

Artists and galleries open our eyes to the places where we’ve travelled and we always seek out national collections to see through other people’s eyes what they might see and value.