Mauritshuis, 1

The Mauritshuis has been closed the last several years for renovations, and many of its holdings either shared via neighbor museums or sent on a world-wide tour. We visited the tour when it came to San Francisco in 2013 and admired its assorted Hals, Steens, and Vermeer (http://roadeveron.blogspot.be/2013/02/de-girl-with-de-pearl-at-de-young.html). So naturally we wanted to see the larger Mauritshuis now that it is all put back together.

The Mauritshuis, in the government center

It is of course the home of the girl with the pearl...we'll get to her later

A Garden of Eden done jointly by Rubens and Peter Breughel the Younger

Francois Brunel's disturbing Confiscation of the Contents of a Painter's Studio,
1590

Rogier van der Weyden's Lamentation, mid-15th century

Hendrik Avercamp, Ice Scene, 1610

Up closer for Breughelesque humor

Clara Peeters, Still Life with Pretzel, 1615; I swear I am not
making this up

One of Rembrandt's first big hits, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholaes Tulp;
done when R was only 25

Rembrandt's Homer, 1663

Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1669; probably his last

And on a lighter note, one of the Mauritshuis' most popular pieces, so the guide
said, Paulus Potter's The Bull, 1647; life-sized, too

Detail; certainly the largest cow pattie in 17th century art; certainly exceeded
somewhere in the 20th century, whose excesses knew few limits

The Hague

The Hague or Den Haag is the long-time home of courts of international law and a very old Nederlands city. We were there to visit the Mauritshuis, perhaps the nation's second most important art museum, after the Rijksmuseum. We took bus #36 to Leyenburg and then a tram into the city center for a pleasant day's outing.

Sculpture, mostly contemporary sculpture, adorns this city too;
sometimes edifying or insightful, sometimes, vexing, sometimes
repulsive

And sometimes functional, even comfortable after a day on one's feet

We had lunch at a place called Will's Pancake House-- seriously--splitting a huge
omelet and then this pancake/strawberry/cream/confectionery sugar creation

Waddling along after lunch, a view of some of Den Haag's
contemporary architecture

And some interesting older Dutch Art Deco

Street scene downtown

What a concept!

At a cafe; yes, it was quite cool than day

In a courtyard of the Dutch Parliament; note lace curtains in office windows....

Same courtyard, church, and Queen Beatrix fountain

And now in a chocolate store...I went healthy with the chocolate- dipped dried
mango...

Thought for the day

In a housewares store, a whole display of devices and
accoutrements for the aged...

And more sculpture

Poeldijk; Or, Tie Me Wallaby Down...

After Haarlem, and while waiting on a solar panel we had ordered to arrive in Zilk, we drove south to Poeldijk and a camper-stop there, which we used to see both Den Haag and Rotterdam. Poeldijk had its own interest.

So here is the camper-stop in Poeldijk; room for six rigs; 5E
a night, but 2E more if you want electricity (we didn't)

This is how you do cities: find the closest campground or
camper-stop, park, and then learn what you can about the local
bus/tram/metro situation and proceed; Poeldijk is sort of left-
center above; the Hague. Hook of Holland, Delft, and
Rotterdam are nearly within walking-distance nowadays; the
blue areas are not water...they're greenhouses; seriously

Of course, you document everything along the way

The big church in Poeldijk

And a nearly Gaudi-esque bench in a little square

The camper-stop itself was in a sort-of-a light industrial/green-
house (it is Nederlands) sort-of district; with a peaceable kingdom
thrown in for good measure; half an acre fenced in with deer,
chicken, pigeons, turkeys and

Wallabies?

Thus; five or six of them

The greenhouses had their own deal; honor system, of course

And we couldn't resist avoiding the middlemen

Franz Hals Museum, 2

Hals is one of the painters we really like. A humanist contemporary of Rembrandt. He did a few still lifes. But most of his known work is individual portrait, some formal, commissioned, some tronies, just regular people—drunks, prostitutes, town idiots—and some very important group portraits. He went out of fashion, somewhat like Vermeer, for a couple centuries, then was rediscovered in the 19^th. And now his work, the individual portraits especially, are famous and spread across the globe, in 88 different museums, including all the most famous ones. If you know Hals, you probably know one or more of these individual portraits. Interestingly, the Franz Hals Museum in Haarlem has few of the individual portraits, but all of the great group portraits.

Hals was an innovator, not so much with medium as with the brush. He painted quickly, seldom did sketches or studies, and used big quick brushwork to convey his subjects, no matter how large or minute. The Impressionists, 200 years later, idolized him. Like Hals, they knew the human eye would fill in the blanks, make sense of dabs of paint, and pronounce them beautiful or insightful. (Van Gogh wrote that Hals used 27 different shades of black!)

The main reason we have always liked and sought after Hals is that his paintings, most of them, are fun and enjoyable to look at. He was a master psychologist, like the greatest of portrait painters, able to capture a soul in a snapshot. So his contemporaries said. Sort of.

One other tidbit. Hals refused to paint anywhere but Haarlem. The subjects of his portraits, including the great group portraits, came to him. No less than Descartes, the greatest mind of the age, came to Haarlem to sit for Franz Hals. That portrait resides in the Louvre.

Officers of the St. George's Civic Guard, 1639; we're moving from later to
earlier; these are all huge format paintings, life-sized

Banquet for the (retiring) Officers of the St. George's Civic Guard, 1624-27;
in Hals' day the banquets were limited to three days' duration

Banquest of the Officers of the St. George Civic Guard, 1616; they were good
customers; Hals was a member

Banquet of the Officers of the Callivermen [Cavalrymen?] Civic Guard, 1624-27

Meeting of Officers and Sub-alterns of the Callivermen, 1633

Center, Hals himself, one of the St. Georgers

Enlarge (click): a great example of Hals' minimalist brushwork

The only dog to be a member of one of the Dutch civic guards; I have forgotten
his name; Phaedeaux or perhaps Roveer? Schpot?

One of the Museum's few individual portraits, but an
important one, thought to be Hals' first: Jacobus Zaffius,
archdeacon and highest-ranking Catholic in Protestant
Haarlem; he was so respected the city council looked
the other way...

Another individual portrait, undated, the subject
unidentified

I apparently became quite undisciplined at this point, taking pix of Hals men in
black  but failing to shoot the descriptors

I think these are the trustees of the old mens' home where the museum  now
resides

And, undergoing restoration--I love museums that let you see this underway...it is
so much of what museums are about--the female trustees of the home once it was
decided to go co-ed

Moving right along now, the Apotheek at the home...

And--who else?--Jan Steen's The Quack

Lastly, the beautiful French courtyard of the home