Friday, March 22nd
My flight to Amsterdam was scheduled to leave late morning from the Munich airport, so I had time to see the girls off to school. It's absolutely amazing to me that I can do this--fly away for a weekend with J--and not worry about them. They're set up with food and instructions to clean up after themselves (which I really hardly need to say anymore). What a gift!
My flight was delayed due to the late arrival of the airplane which was due to thick fog at the Amsterdam airport. We were finally invited to board around 1 p.m., so instead of landing around 1:15 p.m. in Amsterdam, I arrived around 3:15 instead, followed the signs to the Bus terminal and found the bus I needed to take to get to the hotel where J was staying. He met me at the bus stop and walked me to the hotel--just a few 100 meters down the street. We dropped my bags off in the hotel room and then hopped on another bus into the city center, about a 20 minute ride. Our plans for the weekend were pretty loose: wander, explore, absorb the light and atmosphere, visit some of the museums, drink good coffee, and eat good food (without breaking the bank).
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| After a two hour delay due to fog in Amsterdam, we're all lined up, ready to board! |
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| Hello Amsterdam! |
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| The arrival of spring is about 2 weeks ahead of Munich here. The daffodils are out (but no tulips yet, unfortunately) and the willows have their baby green leaves draped over the canals. The sun seemed to stay out forever in the evening and we enjoyed wearing just sweater/hoodie. |
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| Downtown Amsterdam was a bustling throng of trams, pedestrians, bikers, and frustrated drivers--priority definitely seems to go to the bikers and pedestrians. The sun going down didn't seem to lessen the number of people on the sidewalks and crossing the street--unlike in Germany--was an exercise in dodging obstacles while making sure you're not an obstacle yourself! |
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| Oy! Biking while looking at cellphone... Hmm. Talk about distracted driving! We also saw many people sitting back with both hands on their phone and pedaling along--not holding on to the handlebars! 😳😲 |
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| We picked an inexpensive Turkish restaurant, Sefa BBQ, for our dinner and sat at the wide-open windows in front so we could watch the sky darken and see the bustle of people and bikes. The Westerkerk across the street had a Glockenspiel that played on the hour. |
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| J's platter... |
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| My salad (I stole some of his chicken...) |
After the coffeeshop and before dinner, we found an Aldi and a larger grocery store, picking up our usual grocery store raid supplies: fresh produce and some cold cuts and cheese for packed lunches. The hotel room had a small dorm-style fridge, so we kept it light knowing we could pick up more tomorrow, if needed.
After dinner we took the bus back to the hotel and had a pretty early bedtime--we knew Saturday would be a full day!
Saturday, March 23rd
Our top priority for today was to go to the
Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh museum. We ate breakfast in the hotel room, picked up coffee from the lobby downstairs and hopped on the bus into the city. The line for tickets was already pretty long when we got there at opening time, so I popped over to a food stall for a second round of coffees to sip while we waited. The sky was gray, but thankfully not forecast to rain. We got bundled tickets to enter the Van Gogh museum at 11 and then the
Rijksmuseum anytime after that.
Growing up, both of our parents had prints of Van Gogh paintings in their homes. J's family had
Bedroom in Arles while mine had one of the
sunflower paintings. We each have memories of these paintings being part of the decor as we grew up. J associated Van Gogh with southern France, but I had always thought of him tied to Holland. Turns out we were both right.
The story of how he decided to try his hand at becoming an artist is quite fascinating!
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| Gardens of the Rijksmuseum through the wrought iron fence. |
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| In line for tickets... |
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| Surprisingly good coffee from the Kiosk Rembrandt Van Gogh! |
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| Southern France--explains J's association of Van Gogh with the year his family spent in Provence for his father's sabbatical when he was in 10th grade. |
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| So familiar... yet not quite the same! I learned that Van Gogh did several series of sunflower studies and that the one my parents had hanging over their bed for years (a print of it; obviously not the original) was painted in 1888. This one is from 1885. The one I'm familiar with is in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich which is unfortunately closed for building renovations, so I won't have a chance to see it before we move back to Virginia. |
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| Forgot to take a picture of the plaque, so I'm not positive, but I think this is a Monet painting of Van Gogh painting one of his sunflower studies. Van Gogh was friends with and surrounded himself with other artists--Gaugin, Rodin, Monet, Manet... He wanted to start an artists colony/communal house in France, but only one of his friends ever came to stay with him and they fought so terribly that the friend left after just two months. |
After finishing in the Van Gogh museum, we ate lunch outside at the tables by the food stalls on the
Museumplein, then walked over to the
Rijksmuseum.
We picked up one of the floorplans with a list of highlighted works and
their locations and made our way somewhat strategically through the
galleries looking for the highlighted masterpieces.
One of my favorite artists is
Rembrandt--perhaps he's even my very favorite. I still remember seeing one of his paintings when we went with my parents and a
Brethren Colleges Abroad student group (my dad was the
BCA director in
Marburg,
Germany from 1985-1987) to a museum in Budapest--I was about 10 or 11
years old. His use of light and unconventional painting techniques are
striking. There is a special exhibit at the
Rijksmuseum of "Alle
Rembrandts" until June of this year, but having just immersed ourselves
in the Van Gogh museum, we put off getting the extra access ticket for
the Rembrandt exhibit thinking we'd at least see his highlighted
paintings in the masterworks gallery--that turned out to be a mistake
because the only Rembrandt painting still on display in the main part of
the museum was the gigantic
Nightwatch while all the others had
been moved to the special exhibit! When we decided we did want to go
through the special exhibit, it was too late in the afternoon and they
weren't giving out access time slots anymore. Maybe tomorrow we'll just
have to come back...
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| Headed over to the Rijksmuseum... |
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| In the entry lobby of the museum, there were sign ups for free portrait drawings of the model. |
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| "July" by Jacobus van Looy, c. 1900: It seems as if Van Looy has lavishly strewn blue flowers all over this large canvas. Looking a bit longer, however, one notices the artist's house in Soest and the hay wagons behind the tall hedge, and in the right foreground an overturned pot among the flowers. The painter was clearly inspired by the landscapes of Van Gogh, but his representation of nature and the fall of light are more realistic. - Rijksmuseum identification plaque |
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| The Library: one of the largest art-historical libraries of its kind in the Netherlands. "The museum library is the place where visitors and researchers can learn about art and art history, as well as make inquiries about objects in the Rijksmuseum's collection and conduct research in general. The four-story library contains one kilometre of books." - Rijksmuseum identification plaque |
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| Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" |
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| Did you know he painted himself into this painting too? The center circle highlights the face of a man with a floppy hat peering into the center of the scene. Another interesting tidbit: Rembrandt didn't name this piece--in fact it was unnamed--but it earned the name "The Night Watch" when it became part of a museum collection due to its dark colors. However, when it was cleaned and restored, it was discovered that the setting was not outside at dusk/night, but instead was an interior room and there is sunlight streaming in from a high window! So, it's not nighttime at all! By then, however, the name had stuck. |
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| This little girl was intent on her work, sitting right in front, leaning in close to her sketch pad and then peering intently up at the giant painting in front of her. |
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| Pretty impressive! |
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| Peasants in an Interior by Adriaen van Ostade (oil on copper, 1661) |
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| Peasant Kermis by David Teniers (1665) |
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| On the way out... a different model and different artists at work. |
After the Rijksmuseum, we went on the hunt for a cup of hot coffee and wandered the streets and canals, taking our time (I had to stop to take a lot of pictures). We had time to kill--supper at some point--until our 9 p.m. river cruise which J had booked ahead.
I gave J my phone for some pictures of me... Not too slouchy! After we finished our drinks, we walked to the
Bloemenmarkt--which is really just another tourist trap selling souvenirs and tulip bulbs, but it was still a fun, bustling destination, and the cheese shops along the opposite side had fantastic sheep and goat cheeses (including samples to eat!).
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| Our coffees arrived... cappuccino for J, americano for me... we told the barista we're the "ones in the sun" when we ordered. He had no trouble finding us... |
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| Where we bought some herbed goat cheese and an aged sheep cheese, similar to Manchego, but even more tangy. |
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| Flower stalls sprawled along the canal. |
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| Inconspicuous: the exterior of Anne Frank's House |
After wandering through the neighborhoods and canals, we picked a hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant for dinner. J ordered a lamb curry and I got a chicken Saag; both came with lentil Dal, rice, and salad. It was all delicious!
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| Dusk... the lamps come on. |
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| Houseboat! These were so cool--and so many variations. |
Sunday, March 24th
We rolled out of bed and took the bus into town to try to get online at a cafe to order
Anne Frank House tickets. 80% of a given day's tickets are released two months in advance and sell out quickly and the other 20% are released at 9 a.m. each day. I got in the online queue but my data connection was flaky and I kept getting dumped and would be "behind" even more people when my phone reconnected. So by the time I got through, the tickets were all sold out for the day. Bummer.
So, back up plan: go back to the
Rijksmuseum to see the
Rembrandt special exhibit that we missed yesterday.
Sorry. So NOT sorry.
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| Coffee at a sweet café near the Anne Frank House museum. Unfortunately didn't note where it was exactly and forget what it's called. But it turned out to be a source of inspiration for a purchase at the gift shop later that morning... |
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| Inspired... I love pen and ink drawings! These caught my eye as we got ready to leave, having failed to get Anne Frank House tickets. I'm not really sure why I took pictures, but it's foretelling that I did. Little did I know that the Rembrandt exhibit primarily would primarily feature his etchings--which are basically in black and white. |
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| Tiny crooked house |
OK, so Rembrandt is one of my favorite artists. Noted. Said that
already. I thought I knew a lot about what he's contributed to art and
painting techniques, but there was a HUGE HOLE in my knowledge that this
special exhibit filled... I had known that he did a lot of
self-portraits, but what I didn't realize was that he basically created
the art-form "selfie." Not kidding! He used his own face, looking in a
mirror, to study expressions, costumes, hair and beard styles, light and
line, shadow and spotlight. He made goofy faces, sad faces, happy
faces, surprised faces, scared faces. And he didn't do it in pencil or
paint. Nope, he did it in relief, on copper etching plates and then put
them through a press, made changes to the plate, and did it again... And
again. And again. The special exhibit was basically a progression of
his artistic study and persistence in teaching himself the most basic of techniques: lines and shadows in black and white. It's a stunning
journey. I could have spent hours in there. SOOO glad we didn't get
tickets for the Anne Frank House and ended up going back to the
Rijksmuseum to take this in. I have a much fuller picture of why his
painted portraits and scenes are so moving, so mysterious.
The
other bit that I loved: he used his wife, Saskia, and their children,
his mother and father, as models for character studies. His family life
was clearly near and dear to his heart. Somehow, that makes him more
real. More solid. Maybe because this year in Munich has brought me
closer to my husband and kids. Adventuring together has a tendency to do
that.
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| Rijksmuseum Take #2: Alle Rembrandts special exhibit |
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| Self-portrait in a Cap, Wide-eyes and Open-mouthed (etching and drypoint, 1630): "Of all the self-portraits in which Rembrandt depicts emotions, this one is probably the most engaging. He looks startled here... with pursed lips and wide-open eyes. You see him slightly from below, so that he seems to be recoiling. The etching is clearly executed and clever, with the contours of the shoulders and the cap fading into the edges." |
"LOOKING IN THE MIRROR. No other 17th-century artist produced as many self-portraits as Rembrandt... he routinely chose his own facial features as the sbuject of penetrating study... Peering in the mirror he first perfected his drawing, etching and painting techniques. He practised rendering powerful contrasts of light and capturing subtle shadows... Rembrandt became thoroughly familiar with his own face, and now we can too." [
Rijksmuseum introductory plaque; abbrev.]
**all quotes are directly from photos I took of the Rijksmuseum identification and information plaques next to the matted etchings, drawings, and paintings in the exhibit.
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| Self-portrait in a Soft Cap (etching, ca. 1634): "Rembrandt must have had a substantial collection of headgear. Here we see him in a cap pulled forward, a kutchma (a Polish fur hat) and a velvet beret with a visor. Incidentally, in Rembrandt's time such berets were considered old-fashioned and reminiscent mainly of 16th-century head coverings." |
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| Self-portrait in a Soft Hat and Patterned Cloak (etching, with touches of drypoint, 1631) |
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| "Rembrandt's etchings rarely came into being in a single session. Certainly in the early years when he was still inexperienced, several steps were needed to achieve the results he had in mind. This self-portrait shows how he went about this. He began with the head, moved on to the torso and finally added the background." |
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| "Another five small depictions of men's heads, but this time it is certain that they did not originate as independent prints. Originally, they were all on the same copperplate. After Rembrandt cut up the plate, he completed each print individually. This working method was unusual and characterizes Rembrandt as an artist who often strayed off the beaten path." |
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| Old Woman Reading, Probably the Prophetess Anna (oil on panel, 1631): "Here the light comes from behind the old woman: the brightest illumination falls on the book and her wrinkled hand, modeled with paint. Her face remains in shadow. She could be the prophetess Anna, an elderly widow who, according to the Bible, served God through fasting and prayer. Tradition has it that Rembrandt's mother posted for this painting." |
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| Close up of the 3rd of the images in the next set. |
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| Rembrandt's Mother, 1628: "This old woman already featured in the first etchings Rembrandt made. She is virtually certainly his mother, Neeltgen Willemsdr van Zuytbroeck. In the two versions of 1628, she is 60 years old. They are accurate studies of her furrowed face, drawn in such detail that you can just imagine the young Rembrandt toiling away on his copperplate directly in front of her." |
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| Art museums are not this guy's thing, but he loves getting to know what I love and he learned that I'm just about as crazy about art and art history, as I am about music. Going on 20 years of getting to know each other! |
"DRAWING IN THE STREET Surely, we all recognize the urge to look at people around us, especially when they stand out. In his early years, Rembrandt was utterly fascinated by raw, outdoor life and its picturesque side. In Leiden, he etched and drew countless beggars, shabby musicians and other folk he encountered in the street. Later he was also greatly inspired by outdoor tableaux in Amsterdam, where he lived from 1631, as evidenced by the soldiers, peddlers and wretches who then populated his work."
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| Beggar Man and Woman behind a Bank (etching, engraving and drypoint, c. 1630); Ragged Peasant with his Hands behind him (etching, c. 1630); Beggar with a Wooden Leg (etching, c. 1630) |
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| A Blind Hurdy-gurdy Player and his Family (etching and drypoint, 1648) |
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| Three Women and a Child by a Door (pen and brown ink, c. 1645): "Rembrandt took visible pleasure in drawing domestic scenes of women and children. Collectors, too, were clearly charmed by them. When the painter and collector Jan van de Cappelle died in 1679, he left behind an album containing 135 drawings 'being the life of women with children by Rembrandt.' Perhaps this splendid drawing was one of them" |
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| "In 1634 Rembrandt married Saskia Uylenburgh, the daughter of a mayor of Leeuwarden. Almost all of the heads in these studies are of her. Rembrandt evidently thoroughly enjoyed portraying his new bride in ever-different poses. The fluid lines suggest that he drew directly on the etching ground, at times without his models being aware of it." |
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| "Rembrandt sometimes used his etching plate as a sketchbook. He would
combine unrelated motifs together on a single copperplate. The sequence
is unclear, but as each print is rotated, a different motif takes
precedence. Also striking is the fact that on each plate he began making
a self-portrait, which he then left unfinished." |
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| "In 1641 Saskia gave birth to her fourth child, a son, Titus. The joy was soon dampened by a wasting disease from which she suffered, probably tuberculosis. She was not yet 30 years old when she died in 1642. Rembrandt continued drawing her until the very end. He poignantly captured her vacant gaze in the etching at the right." |
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| Saskia with Pearls in her Hair (etching, 1634): "This small etching of a young woman from 1634 was only recently identified as a portrait of Rembrandt's wife, Saskia. Pearls are woven in her hair and hang from her neck and ears. The gown and the lace kerchief around her shoulders are fashionable and contemporary. Rembrandt and Saskia wed in 1634; hence, this may well be a portrait of her in bridal attire." |
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| Student at a Table by the Light of an Oil Lamp (etching, c. 1642): "The man in the dark room is barely visible. He is studying by the light of an oil lamp. Resting his forehead on his hand, he seems to be reflecting on what he has just read. Rembrandt achieved this powerful contrast of light and dark by scratching crosshatched lines in the copperplate. He never again made such a dark print." |
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| Close-up... I think the man looks like Rembrandt, himself, don't you? |
"Rembrandt painted only a few landscapes, mostly imaginary vistas with mountains in the background. While he might very well have seen the different parts of this landscape - the bridge, for instance - in reality, he actually assembled them into a non-existent entity. The light is magical: a sunbeam breaks through the clouds, making the approaching thunderstorm seem twice as menacing."
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| Landscape with a Stone Bridge (oil on panel, c. 1638) |
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| The Windmill (etching and drypoint, 1641): "Rembrandt's father was a miller in Leiden, and this mill was long assumed to have belonged to the Van Rijn family. However, it was actually located on the De Passerdeer bulwark in Amsterdam. The chamois leather workers' guild used it to soften leather with cod-liver oil. The stench this produced earned the mill its nickname, the 'little stink mill'." |
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| Close-up of the tree from the scene above. Notice the cross-hatching that he uses to give the tree texture and shadows. |
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| "The style, subject, oblong format and paper agree so closely with
the print displayed above [next image] that Rembrandt surely must have meant them as a
pair. This type of cottage is called a 'langhuisboerderij'
('longhouse-farmstead') and has a roof covered with thatch and sod.
Rembrandt depicts the dwelling in a dilapidated condition, but still
inhabited; two children stand in the doorway." |
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| Cottages beside a Canal: View of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel (etching and drypoint, c. 1641) |
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| Isaac and Rebecca, Known as 'The Jewish Bride' (oil on canvas, c. 1665-1669): "To prevent being killed and having his wife captured by King Abimelech, Isaac concealed his love for Rebecca by pretending they were brother and sister. However, their intimacy betrayed them when they thought they were not being spied on. Rembrandt depicts them in a tender moment. Furthermore, he works with exceptional freedom, applies the paint thickly, and scratches into it with the butt end of his paintbrush." |
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| Christ Driving the Money-changers from the Temple (etching, 1635) |
"STORIES FROM THE BIBLE To this day, Rembrandt's biblical scenes are gripping and accessible. Who would not be startled by the sudden appearance out of nowhere of an angel who announces the coming of Christ? And who would not be touched by the shepherds later visiting Baby Jesus and his parents in a stable, where they do not kneel reverently before the future Saviour, but gaze tenderly at the infant as though on an ordinary maternity visit?
However, a story is not told merely through appropriate actions and emotions. It is not for nothing that Rembrandt is known as a master of light and dark; he deploys colour and effects of light in the service of the story. He does so, moreover, using an increasingly coarser, experimental technique, which helps reduce the story to its essence."
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| Close-up: The Adoration of the Shepherds (etching and drypoint, on Chinese paper, c. 1657): "After the annunciation, the shepherds travel to Bethlehem and find Jesus with his parents in a stable. Rembrandt could not have depicted this scene any darker or stiller. The lantern of the arriving shepherds casts light on the Virgin, who has fallen asleep. Joseph sits reading by his own lamplight and looks up in surprise." |
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| The Adoration of the Shepherds (etching, with plate tone, c. 1654) |
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| The Holy Family (etching, c. 1632): "Rembrandt sets the scene in a fairly ill-defined interior. Yet the way the figure of the Virgin suckling the Child fills the foreground draws viewers into sharing this deeply intimate moment, as if we were in the room. Joseph, by contrast, continues reading unperturbed in the background. He often appears this way in 16th-century Italian prints, which may have inspired Rembrandt." |
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| The Descent from the Cross, Second Plate (etching and engraving, 1633): "With the aid of a cloth, a group of men carefully lower Christ's lifeless body from the Cross. One of them is Rembrandt: the man on the ladder has his face. At the foot of the Cross lies the shroud in which Christ's body will be wrapped. This huge print reproduces a painting that Rembrandt had made shortly before for Prince Frederick Henry." |
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| Close-up of the figures at the base of the cross. |
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| Rembrandt's face on the man on the ladder, downcast and griefstricken. |
After finishing up in the special exhibit, we headed out to the streets again to find a café with wifi,
Black Gold, so J could do some work on a grant proposal. We nibbled on our packed lunch while he worked. At the shop set up at the exit of the special exhibit, I bought a set of india ink pens. I pulled those out while J was working and played around a bit, inspired by the many black and white prints we'd just seen...
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| It really was some amazing coffee! |
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| Laundry. Love this. |
After lunch and coffee, work and creativity, we wandered through the streets and along canals to find the
Museum Willet-Holthuysen, a refurbished, furnished gentleman's house along the famous
Herengracht canal.
From there we tried to find our way back towards the
Museumplein without looking at the map--no easy feat given the circular layout of the city streets, canals, bridges, and tiny alleys! (We couldn't do it. Caved and searched Google Maps.)
We topped off the day with an early dinner at an Italian restaurant,
Saturino, followed by an early bedtime... We have to get up with the sun to go to the airport tomorrow!
Monday, March 25th
J's flight back to Munich was scheduled for 9:30 a.m., so we needed to
leave by 6:45 to get to the airport via bus. My flight was later in the
day, but I didn't have any reason to hang out longer at the hotel or to
go back into the city, so we got up together, ate a final
grocery-store-raid-breakfast, packed the rest for lunch and left
together.
After passing through security, I set myself up at a table in the food court with a Starbucks coffee, my sketchbook and ink pens, while J went on to his gate (my flight didn't have a gate posted yet). Due to stormy weather in both Munich and Amsterdam, we both had flight delays and changes! J was supposed to go to Zurich, transfer, and fly on to Munich, but his flight from Amsterdam was delayed and he missed the connection, so Lufthansa re-booked him to a direct flight leaving around noon.
I went to the gate of an earlier flight of my booked airline, KLM to see if I could get on standby, but it was delayed, then canceled and all of those passengers were then trying to get onto the noon flight or the 3 p.m. flight (which I was booked and checked in for). My 3 p.m. flight was then delayed by about 1.5 hours! We finally boarded after 4 p.m. and then were told that we would have to wait another 45 minutes for take-off. Then suddenly we were bumped up to an earlier slot and told to get buckled and ready for take-off! Whew.
Once in the air, it was pretty smooth, but I was relieved when I was back on solid ground in Munich. I finally arrived at home around 7 p.m. (J had gotten home around 3:30) and then it was back to the grindstone: laundry...
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