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| Glass Chandelier in the Mauritshuis Museum, The Hague, Netherlands |
The
Dutch “Golden Age”
memoir
By
Gregory E. Larson
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked out the
small, round porthole of my cabin on the barge, which was lashed to a quay at
the juncture of canals and a river in Delft (pronounced Del-left by the
Dutch). It was a picturesque view across the water to the church towers and
buildings at the center of the city. The barge named Elodie was a moving “hotel” for me and fifteen
other people who were part of our bicycle tour.
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| The Elodie was our moving hotel during the bicycle tour. |
After breakfast in the main cabin, our group went up on deck in the chilly spring
air to soak in the morning sun while the barge floated peacefully under the
bridges and through the neighborhoods on the north side of Delft. Our captain
slowed the huge craft to the side of the canal and tied it near a shop that
made authentic Delft pottery. Once inside, we were given a guided tour which
included facts on the history of Delftware. During the Golden Age (17th Century) in the
Netherlands, the ships coming back from the orient brought Chinese glazed
pottery, mostly blue and white, with scenes of nature painted on the different
facets. This pottery became popular with the wealthy, and the Dutch craftsmen
decided to create imitations of high quality, to satisfy the demand of the
middle class.
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| The Defltware Studio on the north end of Delft |
A quirk of fate is that now the Chinese are imitating
the Delft style, and ninety percent of the supposed Delft pottery today is
manufactured in China. What goes around comes around.
After the tour, we hopped on the bikes and pedaled to
The Hague (pronounced the hawg in Dutch with the “h” gargled out of the
throat).
The Hague is a bustling city with local, national and
international organizations headquartered there, including the King’s
residence, the Parliament and the World Court. It was important to pay
attention to our guide as we wove our way through the cobblestone streets,
making sure to work around the pedestrians, streetcars and tracks, motorbikes
and general traffic in the area.
Our first destination was the Mauritshuis, a compact museum at the corner of the town square. Their mission is to show the best of Dutch paintings from the time of Rembrandt and Vermeer. I knew that Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring was in the collection but that was my sum total of knowledge when I walked through the lower Garden level entrance. Several people in our group bought tickets and we rode the elevator to the upper exhibit floors. After viewing the galleries on each floor, we walked down the central stairs to the next floor.
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| Interior Gallery on the upper floor of the Mauritshuis Museum |
The interior was traditional, with chandeliers, silk-patterned wallpaper and heavy
mouldings. To my amazement, the museum was full of Dutch Masters paintings,
including Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606 - 1669), Fabritius (Carel
Fabritius, 1622 - 1654), Vermeer (Johannes Vermeer, 1632 - 1675), and Steen (Jan Steen,
1626 - 1679). I enjoyed looking at the young and old Rembrandt self-portraits and
wondered what type of a mirror he used to look at himself.
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| Rembrandt Self-portrait Mauritshuis Museum |
In this period of the seventeenth century (considered
the Dutch “Golden Age”), the Dutch artists flourished, casting aside the traditional
portrait and religious commissions to paint detailed still-life settings of
flowers, pottery, and fruit, as well as landscapes, and interior scenes with
people interacting in daily life. I was astonished at how young the painters
were when they died.
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| Girl with the Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer |
I walked into the gallery where the Girl with the Pearl Earring resided. In the late morning, there were only a handful of people in the room, and after viewing the painting, they moved on to the next gallery. I stood mesmerized at the girl’s face and realized that the painting was fairly small (17.5” high x 15” wide). To my amazement, no one, other than an occasional guard, came through the room. I took the luxury of sitting on a bench, and spent several minutes peering at the painting, inspecting the brush strokes of reflective light off the pearl, and looking at the folds and colors in her blouse and head scarf. I was grateful for the time, having read about the painting when it was on loan and toured the U.S., where people had to wait in long lines for over an hour just to walk by the painting for a few seconds.
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| View of Delft by Johannes Vermeer |
As I looked at the other works in the gallery, I
discovered two more of Vermeer’s paintings. View of Delft (38” high x
45.6” wide) caught me by surprise. In my view was a 17th century painting
of the very spot where our Elodie barge had spent the night. The skyline and the river
looked a bit more ancient and in the foreground was a barge parked to the left
of where our barge had anchored. This view of Delft did not have the city streets and paved quay – just some people in
period dress standing in a field next to the river. Not many landscapes by
Vermeer exist, and the sum total of his known works is barely over thirty. Almost
one-tenth of his paintings resided in this room! The third Vermeer in the room
was Diana and her Companions (38.8” high x 41” wide). Wow, I thought,
here’s a gallery with three Vermeer paintings and I have it all to myself.
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| Diana and her Companions by Johannes Vermeer |
I walked to the next gallery and turned my head to the
right. I gasped and did a double-take at the small painting of The Goldfinch
(13” high x 9” wide) by Fabritius. I was familiar with the painting, which
was used on the cover of the recent fiction book by that title, but I had no
idea that the original painting resided in the Mauritshuis.
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| The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius |
After reading more about the arts Golden Age in the
Netherlands, I learned that Rembrandt was a teacher to Fabritius. The year 1654,
when Fabritius completed The Goldfinch, there was a huge explosion of a
gunpowder magazine in Delft. Over one hundred people died, including Fabritius,
who was only 32 years of age. The Goldfinch survived the blast. It is
also important to note that Fabritius was considered a mentor to Vermeer.
Our bike group then rode to the front gate of the
World Court building, known as the Peace Palace where we sat in a little
park and ate lunch. It seemed ironic that a “peace” palace would have a
monstrous iron fence surrounding it.
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| World Court - Peace Palace The Hague, Netherlands |
Then it was on towards the north and east to the sea
coast, where we rode along a bike path that snaked through the sand dunes and
scrub-brush. At mid-afternoon we stopped at a bar on the beach for a beer. The
therapeutic warmth of the sun relaxed our leg muscles as we sat outside and downed
the beers served in fancy glasses. We climbed back on the bikes and pedaled to
Lieden, a compact university town with canals throughout the city. Our guide
stopped us at a bakery that made authentic Oliebollen, which are like
crispy gourmet doughnut holes. Someone ordered a couple of baskets of them and
we sat outside and tried the different flavors. I thought, this is excellent
biker food.
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| Bike path near the North Sea |
We rode further and found our barge in a canal on the
outskirts of downtown. My memory gets a little fuzzy after that, although I do remember
that some of us went into town for dinner, and afterwards we climbed to the top
of an ancient lookout tower. Finally, my weary body was feeling the effects of
an epic day, so I walked back to the barge. As a coincidence, the Dutch soccer
team was playing a World Cup Match, and the bars along the street were packed
with people watching the game on the big-screens. It was quite memorable to
hear the crowds explode when the Dutch scored a goal. I think the Europeans
have a double passion for soccer as compared to our American football.
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| View of Lieden, Netherlands, from the top of an ancient tower |
Sleeping on a bike tour has never been a problem for
me. As I started to think of all the things I had done in one day, I was off to
a deep sleep in five minutes.
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| Images of tulips danced through my head and I was off to sleep. |
Thanks for sharing. Some of my favorite art works, as well. I, too, am so grateful for the great works of art I was able to see in my lifetime. I am old enough and fortunate enough to have been in Florence in the winter of 1971 when I could go to the Uffizi and it was just me and the guards!
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