Amsterdamsters, 5: Amsterdam Hermitage

Monday we began really exercising our Museumkaarte powers, visiting first the Amsterdam Hermitage and then the Willet-Holthuysen House.

The Hermitage in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) is one of the world's great museums; we hope to see it someday maybe after a regime change. Anyhow, the holdings of the Hermitage are so vast--it can display only 5% at a time--that it has decided to set up Hermitage-outposts in other countries..Amsterdam's outpost is the first and still the largest. There are only temporary exhibits, but they were very well worth seeing, especially the Napoleon/Josephine/Alexander exhibit, which was spectacular for the authenticity of its items (e.g., N's saber from the Nile, J's dresses). Alas, there was a no fotos policy in force, so I have nothing much to show for the visit. But, of  note: there was a bit of a triangle going here, among N, J, and Alexander, and Josephine was a big-time art collector; N was her curator. The other exhibition we saw was one of the great group portraits, as it were, from the Dutch Golden Age. Night Watch. There were a large hall full of them...and then an enchanting little contemporary parody. I did not want to like this museum, but ended up liking it very much.

Modest entrance to the Amsterdam Hermitage: it's in a large
historic quadrangle that was once an old folks home; now
completely renovated and with room for more

The Napoleonic exhibition

Thus

My one clandestine foto from the N/J/A exhibit::from Josephine's
collection...I never, ever, pass up a Claude Lorraine

Moving right along now to another exhibit, group portraits
from the Dutch Golden Age

Thus

And thus

Women in black

Hand signals

A contemporary photographer. Taco Anema, came up with the
idea of juxtaposing these with fotos of today's non-profit
boards...of which there is a large and interesting exhibit...and
of which I'll post just two close to my heart...here is the board
of the Netherlands Federation for the Sciences and Humanities
(humanities get more respect in your more mature countries)

And the board of the Association of Sinti, Roma, and Caravan
Dwellers in the Netherlands

Moving right along from the Hermitage to our next destination,
we again pass the Rembrandt statue and his Night Watch friends

And the lobby of the Pathe Touschinski theatre, which we must
tour next time we are here

Amsterdamsters, 4: At The Rijksmuseum

All day rain was forecast Sunday, so, like everyone else here, we elected to spend it at the national museum. They have finally completed all the renovations underway on our last few visits to the Rijksmuseum, and it was a bit disorienting to see everything in its proper place. All the biggies now are on the main grand hall--improving tour bus traffic immensely, one assumes--but one has to be really dedicated to track down that one obscure Avercamp or de Smooch he/she has come to Amsterdam to see. Whatever. I have posted about the Rijksmuseum before, probably more than once, and most of the biggies can be seen at http://roadeveron.blogspot.nl/2012/07/rijksmuseum-i.html. For the present longish post I will focus on some of the lesser works and on some of the lesser intricacies of art history and criticism.

The Medieval/Renaissance collection starts right next to
the bathrooms/lockers, so we started there...above, what
would normally be called a Tree of Jesse is here,
apparently, a Column of Jesse; rock hard...

In this massacre of something or other scene, art historian Vicki notes that Mary 
Janes  evidently were popular in 15th century Dutch painting 

Smirking Madonna..."I'm the Queen of Heaven! I'm the Queen
of Heaven!"

A polychrome carving of the the Marriage at Cana or the Dinner at Emmaus or
whatever...note that the earthly Jesus, in an unusual depiction, is here wearing a
hat

One of the Weepers, little sculptures some queen or other had
made and arrayed around her tomb; each of the Weepers was
one of her children; Rebecca, Rachel, note

Muy importante...enlarge and study...this is the first European painting
depicting the Encounter--Landscape with an Episode from the Conquest 
of America, Jan Mostaert, 1555

In the Hall of Model Ships...a whole fleet of masterpieces

In the Hall of Doll Houses, Vicki studies...

The nursery...two sets of twins! One for the wet nurse, one for
the dry nurse...

I never, ever, pass up a Claude Lorrain

Now we are in the Grand Hall of the Biggies, I mean, of Honor, watching other
people mostly

OK, so you're one of the city's rich and powerful and you and your club engage 
this painter to do a group portrait, the whole point of which is for you and your 
friends to be able to recognize yourselves and point and say, Yup, that's me, way 
back in 1642; only the painter guy is really more interested in action, emotion, 
brushwork, light and shadow...it was years after The Night Watch before Rembrandt 
received another portrait commission

Men in black

In the Vermeer room, off the Grand Hall; our favorite, the woman reading the letter
(with the map), was on loan in New York (a former Dutch colony)

The Grand Hall of Honor

So I am marveling at this over-sized Massacre of the Innocents, and especially its
Caravaggio-style composition, featuring, um, male buttocks, when Vicki notes...

That we are in fact  in the Caravaggio room (sorry, it's a running gag)

Fishing for Souls...Protestant-style on the left, Catholic- on the right

A favorite Avercamp winter scene, favorite in part for its Breughelesque
scope and realism (details on request)

And thus ended another great day at one of the world's great museums; back out
into the rain...

Amsterdamsters, 3: Amsterdam Museum, Beginhof, and Beyond

Continuing our first day in The City...

Next in our Saturday cavalcade of museums was the Amsterdam Museum (the
city's historical museum, which has wisely dropped "historical" from its title so
as not to offend/repel the ignorant or uneducated or those who are only here to
drink and smoke); etc.); but I digress; I liked this museum a lot, especially for
its many displays, including many high-tech displays; the above shows how far
above/below, mostly below, the level of the North Sea
you are in Amsterdam; Schipol is disturbingly below...

First G/L marriages here, 2001; the "anything goes" facet is
thoughtful, disciplined...

Workers, 1910

An amazing CG-enhanced video of the growth of Amsterdam in the 19th century

Subsidence; there's no drought here

In the Beginhof, a 500 year-old courtyard residence for widows

The Dutch Reformed Church where the Pilgrims (yes, those
Pilgrims) worshipped, awaiting their boat to the New World

A Beguine

Oldest building in Amsterdam, Het Houten Huys, 1528; not
long after, they began requiring that all buildings be made
out of brick... 

Beautiful Art Nouveau...in time, all buildings become
restaurants...

Interior of an Art Nouveau tobacco store of note  

More subsidence

Frites, yum! Vegetarian, too! 

Amsterdamsters, 2: Damrak to Dam Square

Continuing a day in The City...

Centraal Station, the late 19th century Neo-Gothic brick monstrosity that 
is the hub of all ground transportation here; somehwat reminiscent of the 
Embarcadero...somewhat

Walking south on the Damrak, the main drag, toward Dam square/piazza/whatever;
it's not the Rambla nor the Champs de Elysee, but, like them, you know where you've
landed

Former stock exchange; I don't know where they invented capitalism, but it was
probably perfected here

Royal Palace on the Dam; we'll tour shortly

New church (only 600 years old)

National monument on Dam square

Inside the New Church; it was Protestanized in the 1500s and
thus the pulpit became the main feature, not the altar, the relics,
etc.

Catholic vestige

Moving right along, we are now in the great hall of the Royal
Palace on the Dam; much explanation is in order: we purchased
two Netherlands museum passes, which entitle us to repeated 
visits to some 400 Netherlands museums over the next year...
and thus we will be visiting quite a few museums in Netherlands
that are new to us and probably to anyone we may ever have
known...

Closer up of Atlas, holding up the world in the Royal Palace's
great hall...more explanation...the Royal Palace was originally
the city hall of what was becoming, in the mid-17th century,
the richest city in Europe; Amsterdam had rebelled against
its Spanish/Hapsburg over-lords, and established itself as a
somewhat democratic republic; this is the hall of the people,
as it were

The marble floors of which display mid-17th century maps of the world...which
Amsterdam was busily colonizing...the significance of this shot is the eastern
coast of Australia, minus Tasmania and New Zealand, which the Dutch explorer
Abel Tasman later "discovered"

The city hall became a royal hall in 1808, after Napoleon saw 
the place and thought, well, suitably upgraded and augmented, 
it might provide a nice palace for his brother, Louis Napoleon, 
whom he had installed as king of the Netherlands; a Napoleonic 
fixer-upper; progress is not always linear, right?

Anyhow, Netherlands has remained a monarchy, a constitutional and symbolic one
(maybe it's good for tourism?), and thus the decor of the Royal Palace has remained,
um, royal; this is the former bankruptcy court, whose most famous defendant was
perhaps the Netherlands' most famous citizen: Rembrandt

And this is the former city council chambers, the decor of which, you, sister Carole,
may find helpfully instructive