Vermeer was here

There’s an incredible exhibition on at the Rijksmuseum showcasing the largest collection of his works ever assembled in one place, a total of 28 of the 37 paintings known to exist. From the moment the exhibition was announced I knew I’d have to go. I bought tickets in January and today I went.

It’s an astonishing exhibition, grouped by theme which is a great way to do it, and the explanations in each room help put it in context. There’s also a timeline in the last room of all the known paintings to help you see the chronology of the paintings – my one quibble with the exhibition would be that the tiny scale of the timeline means you can’t see the images unless you’re right up close and given the popularity of the exhibition it is almost impossible to ‘read’ the timeline. And there was a whole empty wall next to they could have used.

I’ve seen the Dutch-held works plenty of times, and seen a few held in museums around the world, but to see them all at once was truly wonderful. You could see similarities across works, and even costumes or props re-used. Such as the painting of Cupid used in the two paintings below, which resembles a painting from Vermeer’s own collection of art, a painting by Cesar van Everdingen.

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, Johannes Vermeer, 1657-58, oil on canvas. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.

A Young Woman standing at a Virginal, Johannes Vermeer, 1670–72, oil on canvas. The National Gallery, London

The painting on the left, Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, has recently been restored, until 2019 the painting of cupid behind her had been painted over to give a plain white wall. The rediscovery and restoration make it even clearer that the letter is a love letter. The change is so recent that the Vermeer books in the giftshop still include the old unrestored version of the painting.

There is one painting held by the Mauritshuis that I’ve never felt super sure about. It doesn’t have that quiet feeling of a stolen moment that I associated so strongly with Vermeer, but seeing it today in context with two other early works it finally made sense and that’s “Diana and her Companions“.

Diana and her Companions, Johannes Vermeer, c. 1653-1654. Mauritshuis, Den Haag.

As I live in the Hague I visit the Girl with a Pearl Earring fairly often, but today she seemed paler and less interesting in her surroundings. I’m not sure if it’s the black background she was hung against or the company she was keeping.

The exhibition is currently on until the 4th of June but is sold out, the Rijksmuseum currently has this statement on their website

“Interest in the Vermeer exhibition is very high. Unfortunately, there are no more tickets available at the moment. The Rijksmuseum is working hard to give more people the opportunity to see the exhibition. From 6 March, we will provide a new update via the Rijksmuseum website.”

So keep your eyes peeled, and book your tickets quickly if more become available, they will sell out again.

If you can’t make it to Amsterdam, or don’t manage to get tickets, the Rijksmuseum has created a virtual experience that lets you view each image in detail and presents insightful detail of the paintings, including connecting all paintings that share a prop or feature. You can also watch an exploration of each image narrated by Stephen Fry (the Dutch version has Joy Delima as the narrator).

And if that sounds like too much work, this Artnet article lists all the works in the exhibition

Don’t take my word for it; the reviews of this exhibition have been absolute raves, The Guardian called it “one of the most thrilling exhibitions ever conceived“, Washington Post “there will never be another Vermeer show as great as this one” and Forbes “worth a trip to Amsterdam“.

So what is showing at the Mauritshuis while the Girl with a Pearl Earring is visiting Amsterdam? Apparently five works inspired by her, but that’s also been controversial, I might have to drop by and see for myself.

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We Remember

Today is Remembrance Day here in the Netherlands, flags are flown at half mast and there will be a minute’s silence at 8pm this evening. But there are other signs of remembrance in the country, and sometimes the absence of something is also an act of remembrance.

Last year the new North-South line was opened, and many tram lines changed their routes. In among the change I stumbled upon a random fact. There is no tram number 8 in Amsterdam.

From 1905 there was a Tram 8 in Amsterdam, here’s the route that it followed in the 1930s.

The area around the J.D. Meijerplein and Nieuwmarkt was known as the Jodenbuurt, or Jewish Quarter, and Zuider Amstellaan is in the Rivierenbuurt, another area where many Jewish people were living. In the early 20th century this tram was known as the “Jewish Tram” because it connected these areas. After the German’s occupied Amsterdam in 1940 they began limiting what Jews could do, including banning them from using public transport, and the number 8 tram stopped running in 1942.

However the tracks of the number 8 tram were still used, after curfew, to transport Jews from Rivierenbuurt to Amsterdam Central station as the first step of their exile to concentration camps further east. An estimated 80% of Amsterdam’s 80,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

In the late 90s a new tram route was launched with a circular route that was promoted for tourists. The city had planned to use the number 8 for this route, playing on the likeness of the number to the infinity symbol. The circular route was very different from the historic line 8, but even so the memories were too strong and the circular route was eventually given the number 20. (This circular line was never that popular and only lasted from 1997 – 2002).

There is still no number 8 tram.

Image:Tram sign via wiki media: CC-BY-SA, allowed by Amsterdam Museum

High Society

To celebrate their wedding Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit had their portraits painted by Rembrandt. To celebrate acquiring the pair of paintings the Rijksmuseum has created an exhibition of some of the world’s greatest full size portraits called High Society.

Marten Soolmans

Oopjen Coppit

The paintings have been restored and are magnificent in the detail of their opulence, and they once contributed to Rembrandts’ reputation with Amsterdam’s wealthy elite. This is the first time in more than 60 years they’ve been part of a public exhibition. They are jointly owned by the Rijksmuseum and the Louvre and part of that agreement is that the paintings will be kept together and displayed together. I think they’ll be at the Rijksmuseum through next year which is the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt’s death.

The High Society exhibition show cases full length portraits through the centuries from the world’s greatest artists, from Sergent to Munch  and the museum has presented it as if these world famous people turned up to an unlikely party. You can everyone meet the solemn Count and Countess da Porto (by Veronese) who lived 100 years before Rembrandt to the dazzling Marchesa Luisa Casati, who lived 250 years after him.

I met Anna Comptesse de Noailles, the first woman to win the French Legion d’honneur. Apparently when this painting was exhibited it was considered scandalous, partly because of how low her gown sweeps, but also because she is wearing her award around her neck – and apparently that is not done, it should be worn on a sash diagonally across one’s body. Obviously the designers of the award had never thought about how women would wear it.

My favourite painting was this debonair gentleman; he’s Samuel-Jean Pozzi, and he was quite the lady’s man, whose lovers included Sarah Bernhardt. I think I have a crush!

The museum created evening events for this exhibition, and I was lucky enough to go to one. It was fantastic to be in the museum after dark and after the exhibition they turned the lobby into a dance floor and we had champagne and a dance. Just as if we were part of High Society.

High Society is on for about another week – until June 3rd. Tickets to the whole museum are €17.50 and there’s no additional entrance fee for the exhibition. (Free entry with a museum jaarkaart)

 

Sunday Market at Westerpark

On a sunny Sunday afternoon one of the nicest things to do is wander through the Sunday Market at Westerpark. It’s full of crafty goodness, here are some of the highlights from today. (Scroll over to reveal captions).

Smooth Jazz

Spooky chick

Felt owl

Mandala – there were stencils for sale

Animals to love

Chocolate kiss

No Strawberries

Minion Fudge

Garlic galore

smoked garlic

Treasures to re-home

snacks, steamed Baozi and Jaozi

Hang in there

I see a face in the soap

Freaky furniture

Apartment-friendly pet

Finger licking good

There is a market next Sunday – on Rokin, next one at Westerpark isn’t until 1 October.

Félicité at the World Cinema Festival

Félicité is the story of a singer in Kinshasa whose fragile independence is shattered when her son Samo has an awful motorbike accident. Suddenly she needs 900 dollars, an extreme amount for a woman living in a tough economy, as she fights for her son’s life –  literally. The film is slow, in a way that lets you feel very close to her. There were moments that really hit you, and the director Alain Comis doesn’t let you off the hook, you feel her pain. The third key character is Tabu, a character who drinks and loves hard by night and spends his days as a repair man, it’s his poetry and his humour that provide the gentle breaks in the movie’s tension.

I was lucky to be at the opening of the World Cinema Amsterdam Festival where this was shown, and the Director spoke on stage at the end of the movie. He explained that the story started in Senegal (his home country) but moved to Congo when he heard the music of the Kasai Allstars, with whom Félicité sings throughout the movie. He was asked how he found the actress to play the title role. He said “she found me!” He’d imagined a different look for Félicité but kept coming back to Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu in the audition process. She makes the movie, she has a quiet power even in the harshest scenes.

This isn’t an easy movie, as a viewer you have to do some “work” to grasp the story – it’s not all set out for you. But it’s a film that pulls you in and leaves you somewhat hopeful.

You can see it; Saturday 19th August at the Rialto 6.45pm at the Rialto, or Monday 21st August 7pm at De Balie.

See the website of the World Cinema Amsterdam Festival for more movies, the festival is on to 26 August, so be quick!

Amsterdam’s Newest Art Work

I was playing tour guide on Sunday and we wandered up Rokin, the area between Muntplein and the Dam, this area is being redeveloped and is full of restaurants with terraces where people were eating lunch in the sun. At the top of Rokin, just before you get to the Dam is this wonderful sculpture/fountain.

It features two heads facing in opposite directions and water seeps from the top of the heads down their shoulders, across the plinth and spills onto the ground. It was 24 degrees (75F) so it had a pleasant cooling effect, it might be less fun on subzero winter days!

It’s a stunning work of art and the courtyard around it is a peaceful oasis despite being right on a tram route.

The sculpture is by Mark Manders, a Dutch/Belgian sculptor and it was installed on the 31 July 2017.So brand new.

You can see a short movie about the installation from Gemeente Amsterdam (Amsterdam City Council) sorry it’s only in Dutch but the pictures are cool.

Amsterdam’s Coat of Arms

Amsterdam has an emblem with a bold design, and it’s used in a flag. 
It might be a surprise to learn that in this secular, even sin-filled, city that the crosses
 have religious significance. It’s the cross of St. Andrew, but no-one is sure how it ended up on the Amsterdam flag, it may have been part of the arms of the Persijns, a landowning family. The black centre stripe may represent the Amstel, the river after which Amsterdam is named, or not. The 
flag passes the Roman Mars design criteria and gets a nod in this TED talk on flag design (at about 10 minutes in).

The same design is used in an escutcheon or shield shape, and is applied to tourist souvenirs from key rings
to clogs, to beer mugs.

The shield forms part of the city’s arms, it “wears” a crown, which 
is the Imperial Crown of Austria, and the right to use it was granted to
 Amsterdam by the Emperor Maximilian I  in 1489 as a reward for the money lent in the 
Hook and Cod wars. The same crown sits atop the Westertoren, and turns 
up on the Blauwebrug.

Sometime in the 16th century two golden lions were added flanking the shield. I can’t find any particular reason for them being added, but it did bring the city’s coat of arms in line with the national coat of arms where the lion comes from the family arms of Nassau – one title still held by today’s Dutch royal family.  This version of the coat of arms is common around Amsterdam on older buildings.

The most recent addition to the coat of arms is less than 100 years old, and it’s 
the city’s motto “Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig”, meaning “Valiant, Steadfast, Compassionate”. It was granted to the city by Queen Wilhelmina in 1947, in recognition for the bravery and compassion shown by the city in the General Strike of 1941. So on older buildings you won’t see the motto. Here’s today’s coat of arms for Amsterdam.

So this secular, liberal, anything goes city has a coat of arms that features the crown of a
 Catholic monarch, the cross of a Catholic saint and a motto recognising a very humanitarian protest. It tells you a lot about the city.

The image of the city’s coat of arms is in the public domain, but its use is restricted within 
the city, however there are variants of it created and appearing on buildings around the city, and in local art. Including this by Amsterdammer street artist Hugo Mulder.

Images;

• flag; mine
• Westertoren shield;  Grachten van Amsterdam. (excellent site, but Dutch only)
  
• Shield with lion; Radisson Blue
• full coat of arms for Amsterdam,
• art image of coat of arms; GoGallery

Anne Frank House – Annual Advice 2017

Riding my bike along Keizergracht last night I noticed a very long queue and decided it’s time to issue my annual (well, almost annual) advice on visiting Anne Frank House.

Here’s the queue – at least 250 people waiting in line to visit.

They have changed their system since I last wrote about this so here’s the up-to-date advice.

You can buy tickets for a specific time-slot online, the entry time will be between the museum opening and 3.30pm. These tickets are released two months in advance.

If you can’t get an online ticket you can queue for door ticket, these allow entry from 3.30pm until 30 minutes before closing (10pm from April to October).

The ticket price is 9 Euro for an adult and 4.50 Euro for a child between 10-17 (and free for the under 10s).

You can find more details on the Anne Frank House website. If you can’t manage a visit to the annex, there’s a wonderful 3D version online that you can explore.

The museum is going to be extended in the coming year so be prepared for some disruption as a new entrance and facilities are built.

The Anne Frank House

I’ve lived in Amsterdam for a long time, but despite living within a 10 minute bike ride I have only visited Anne Frank House once.

The museum encourages you to buy tickets online, in fact from 9am to 3.30pm you can only visit the museum with a ticket purchased online for a specific timeslot. From 3.30 onwards you can queue and by a ticket at the door, fair warning – the queues get long.

The museum has been developed around the Annex where the Frank family was in hiding, and my visit takes me through the rooms they occupied. The annex has been carefully preserved and the famous bookcase entrance has been reconstructed.

You do get a feeling for the claustrophobic lives of the attic’s eight inhabitants, as you go through the Frank’s family room, Anne’s bedroom, and the Van Pels rooms. It was interesting seeing the “real thing”, including the pictures Anne chose to put on the wall and the notes in her own writing.

After you’ve been through the family space there is an area for more exhibitions where you can learn more about the occupation of Amsterdam and how Jews hid around the city to stay safe. There is a movie playing that includes an interview with Miep Gies – one of the Dutch people who helped supply the families with food.

If you can’t make it to Amsterdam you can take a virtual tour of the house online, complete with close ups of various artifacts and details of each room.

I’d read Anne Frank’s diary as a child, and I’ve seen numerous images of the annex. I think the familiarity of the story and the annex meant that it didn’t have the emotional impact I’d expected. However as I was leaving the museum there was a glass case, and in the case was one of the yellow stars that Jewish people in the Netherlands had been legally required to wear, and I caught my breath. In the grand scheme of things this is perhaps the least of the wrongs, but as a symbol of all the injustice it remains powerful. Any time the government tries to make one group “other” we should be concerned.

The other thing that got me, but in a more hopeful way, was a glass bookcase showing the versions of Anne Frank’s diary in all the translations, there were about 40 different language represented (apparently it’s been translated into 67 languages). And suddenly I saw why Anne Frank’s memory is so important.

There’s a famous quote, often attributed to Stalin,

The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.

It’s very hard to comprehend the sheer scale of the holocaust, the total death toll is usually given as 11 million; that’s Moscow, or Greece, or New York + Chicago, or 3 times the population of my home country. We can’t empathise with a statistic. But when we read the story of one young woman, who happened to be born of a certain religion in the wrong place at the wrong time, then we can understand the tragedy.

 

Images;

Anne Frank bookcase  |  By Bungle (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Holocaust badge for the Netherlands |  Holocaust memorial

Old Stones

The city council has been working on the the Singel, an old Amsterdam canal, for ages. I walk past the worksite frequently and wondered what was taking so long.

Turns out there has been an archeological project, as part of Amsterdam’s medieval city wall was discovered when the 19th-century stone layer was removed revealing 27 large stones. It’s the first time that any of the city wall has been discovered in its original state.

There’s a short article on the City Council website, only available in Dutch .

The wall appears on the oldest map of Amsterdam by Cornelis Anthonisz which dates from 1538.

Here’s an extract from the city council’s article (translation mine);

The site involves 27 large stone from the medieval city wall from the year 1480. These stones were below the water and were only visible after a layer of 19th century stone was removed during the restoration. This wall is also mentioned in the oldest city map of Amsterdam by Cornelis Anthonisz… It is the first time that a portion of the city wall has been found in original condition. Although there are a few loose stones known to have come from the old city wall built into the wall of the Geldersekade.

The medieval stones remain in place. Experts will examine how the area can be preserved. The demolition of the rest of the 19th century quay continues. City Archaeologist Jerzy Gawronski is in consultation with central district and Engineering Amsterdam on how to preserve these special stones. ”