Rockox House

One of the finest of small museums anywhere is the House of Nicholaas Rockox, a 17th century Antwerp patrician and collector. These days it is enhanced by many works from the nearby Royal Museum of Fine Arts, which is being renovated. We spent most of the day here before moving on to the cathedral. Again, the emphasis is local and 14th-17th centuries, which suited us fine. The paintings I'm not posting are nearly as good or famous as the one's I am posting.

Jean Fouquet's mid-15th century Madonna with cherubim
and seraphim; the model was said to be Agnes Sorel,
Charles VII's mistress; condemned as blasphemous by
many, the Surrealists made the "fashion doll" one of their
icons

Antonella da Messina's Calvary; an Italian
painter in Flanders; done between 1457-1460

Rogier van der Weyden's Portrait of 
Philippe de Croy

Festival of the Archers, by the Master of
Frankfurt; he and his wife are in the painting,
lower right, standing above the fence,
recognizable from

The Painter and His Wife; so why did the
Master of Frankfurt paint the huge fly on his
wife's head?

Peter the Younger Brueghel's copy of the Elder's famous
Proverbs, which we saw--studied--in Berlin

Detail worth pondering...

Jan Massijs' Judith

Marinus van Reymerswale The Tax Collector;
nobody likes tax collectors; they always get
funny hats

Much going on in Antoine Steenwinkel's
Vanitas Portrait of the Painter

Joos van Cleve's Jesus and John (that's what
the note said)

Rubens' Venus Frigida, illustrating Terence's line that
without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus would freeze; hunger
and thirst put a chill on love...

Franz Francken's An Art Gallery; I like the gallery shots,
but none of the biggies ever painted them

The Five Senses, by Gonzales Coques (his self-portrait is
the one behind the vase, the sense of taste)

Rubens' Prodigal Son; he never sold this one, kept it for
himself until he died

One wall of one room in this museum; in the center is
Rubens' Memorial Triptych for Nicholas Rockox; other
masterworks all over the place...

Antwerp 2

More of Antwerp...

On one of our walks we ducked into this old
alley--sort of like the traboules in Lyons--and were
rewarded with a number of old views

Thus

And thus

Some 1,000 Madonna and Child sculptures
adorn old Antwerp; sculptors donated such
works hoping to get noticed; so we read

Famous well and iron work

Antwerp performing arts theater; we had lunch one day
nearby

They do fries in Antwerp too

Durer lived for a time in Antwerp, celebrated
by assorted plaques, paintings, and so forth

But Antwerp belongs to the guy who helped design this
church, and whom, I would argue, is the greatest of all
painters, at least as measured by square meters of
acknowledged masterpieces 

Rubens; we'll see his House, his paintings in
the Cathedral and in two of Antwerp's
museums; we've seen his work in most of the
museums we have visited in Europe; we are
not Rubens fans; but you have to pay
homage when in Antwerp

Antwerp 1

After three pleasant days in Amsterdam, we drove back to Antwerp, a city we'd never visited before. The traffic jams were gone, and we found our way easily to the municipal camper stop at Antwerp Expo, about a 10 minute bus ride to the historic district. Antwerp has some great museums which were our primary goals. But first some pix of this beautiful city from our various walks...

In the main square, the cathedral tower above, from the next
big square over

Another beautiful old city square

As elsewhere in this part of the world, guild houses...

Ditto

Beautiful city

Famous fountain

Attempted artsy-fartsy shot of guild house and cathedral
tower; atop the guild house is a sailing ship, emblematic,
for me, anyway, of Antwerp's historic (and contemporary)
importance as one of the world's great ports

Antwerp's cathedral; in another post, we'll
go inside, mostly for the art

Judgment typanum over the main west door; nice Jaws of Hell
on the right side

Van Gogh Museum

So on a rainy Wednesday afternoon we finally made good on a pledge made in Arles, in 2010, and again in 2011 and again in 2012, that we would visit Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum. We had already seen it in 1979, or 1989, but, hey, things change, and in particular, our appreciation of such things certainly has changed. It is a one-person museum, of course, although there are many works by other famous artists who influenced Van Gogh. But as a one-person museum, it permits insight into the artist and to the forces to which he responded, into his development as an artist, that are not available in the usual stray collection of his works. I am not a Van Gogh fan, personally, but I thought this museum did a wonderful job in displaying such things.

Didn't we see this guy in Paris? Musee D'Orsay?

The theme of the exhibition currently is "Van Gogh at work," and
these really are his palette and paint tubes from Paris

I won't try to do this in order nor weave a
Van Gogh narrative; here's a famous painting
of a chair, later 1880s, I'd say

His first big gig was with the Amsterdam Cancer Society
(nyuk, nyuk, nyuk)

Vicki in a Van Gogh chair in the museum bookstore

Extremely famous bedroom scene

Self-portrait with straw hat

He did some very few "religious" pieces: this is Jesus' raising Lazarus; Jesus
apparently is the one with the big boobs; Van Gogh went back to gardens and
wheat fields after this

Thus; the garden at the mental hospital where he lived for a while

Wheat field with storm approaching; prophetic?

Interlude: rainy day shot of the Rijksmuseum from the Van Gogh Museum

Toulouse-Lautrec's portrait of Van Gogh; too loose 
for me

Gaugin's portrait of Van Gogh

At last, in 1890, he walked out into a wheat field and shot himself, still a relatively
young man, and seeming finally to have found his unique vision...

Amsterdam Again

We were Saturday and Sunday in Brugge and thought we would do Antwerp next. But then we cleverly noticed that Antwerp's museums were closed on Monday. So we decided to make Monday a travel day, to Amsterdam, to pick up some items left in storage there, meet new friends, and see the Van Gogh museum.  The travel went smoothly, barely moving actually, in humongous traffic jams around Antwerp, but we got to Amsterdam in good order and found Camping Gaasper, by far the best camping arrangement we have seen for Amsterdam. The city is a straight shot in on the Metro: the station is a few hundred meters from the campground, then one change where you merely cross to the other side of the platform where the second train is waiting for you. Twenty minutes, tops, and you are at Amsterdam's central station.

Students of this blog know that we have been to Amsterdam a number of times, most recently in 2011 and 2012, when we stored the Grey Wanderer there. It is another city of great art and distinctive architecture, and we mostly enjoy just walking around, taking in the canal culture, the fries, the beer, the buildings, the interesting shops and weird people, etc. Perhaps it's my advancing age, but Amsterdam seems to be getting tamer. Drugs and prostitution and general lewdness were far less in evidence this visit. Perhaps it's everyone's advancing age. Perhaps we just go to bed earlier now. Perhaps it was just late May and the swarms, throngs, and hordes of American college students had not yet arrived. Anyhow, here is a miscellany from just walking around Amsterdam.

Amsterdam central station

Famous building

Drug store

Red lights

Bicycle parking garage near the central station

Canal scene

Ditto

Bicycle crash scene; they got up, dusted themselves off,
said sorry, and were back on their respective ways

Another canal scene

Line to get into the Ann Frank House

Street scene, another part of the city (out by the
Museumsplein)

Art Nouveau police station of yore

At the very forgettable flower market

A very rare sight: two American campers, MT and SD license
plates...turned many heads in the campground; most
Europeans have never seen an American camping car, one
from the US; when I sense someone has a sense of humor
and command of English, I tell them we took the Transatlantic
Tunnel (five days, lousy scenery), or that Montana is a small
principality tucked in between Spain and Andorra ("and this
is my wife, Queen Vicki")

Larry and Joyce, embarking on their European motorhome
odyssey; bon voyage!