a little music

Tags

Gert Van Hoef, Holland, Organ, Rotterdam

This young organist from The Netherlands, Gert Van Hoef is impressive, I have watched him playing various pieces and he has great talent.

Trumpet Minuet – Alfred Hollins (1865-1942) December 27, 2019 Live recording concert St. Laurenskerk Rotterdam (the Netherlands) Marcussen-organ Organist: Gert van Hoef Assistant: Marjolein van Hoef and Jan de Rooij

 

To Norway

Tags

champagne, cruise, dining, Holland, North Sea, Norway, ship

We boarded our ship in Amsterdam at the Zouthaven Passenger Terminal  next door to the Centraal Train Station.

We were scheduled to visit the Fjords, Eidfjord, Alesund, Geiranger and the city of Bergen. First we sailed up into the North Sea passing Germany and Denmark it takes about 14 hours to do this. We left at 5PM and for the first hour we slowly made our way in the Canal that brought us to the great gate and lock which we have to cross in order for the ship to be lifted up the Sea Level, you understand why it is called the Low Countries, The Netherlands is under the sea level. The scenery as we cruise slowly along the canal to the Sea is heavy industry, shipping and cargo, The Netherlands is a trading nation with a long history of naval commerce from around the world.

Photo taken from our Stateroom at the front of the ship, here it is the gate and lock we will enter it and be lifted up and then continue into the North Sea just in front of us (top of photo) making a right turn to go North.

Our speed was depending on the winds (gale) and height of the waves between 9 to 15 Knots.

We had lunch by the pool area where they have a pizza and bar, you can also get a burger or hotdog and fries. It was a more quiet area than the Lido Market which was mostly a zoo with far too many people. At night the double tier dining room and the specialty restaurants.

So we enjoyed our pizza which was very good with a bottle of champagne of course.

The large pool and triple jacuzzi area was covered by a retractable roof which opens on sunny days. There is another pool at the rear of the ship.

The North Sea

This area of the ship on the 14 deck was called the retreat and was very nice and private.

The blue arrow indicates our location as we make our way North. A nice beginning to our trip.

 

 

Utrecht

Tags

Canada., Holland, Hudson's Bay Co, Mayor, people, Philip Brown, Treaty, Utrecht

While in the Netherlands we decided to visit Utrecht which is 20 minutes from Amsterdam and served by an efficient modern train service. We took the train at Amsterdam Centraal, the train station serves 162,000 people per day, everything is  automated, you buy your ticket from a machine, present said ticket at the automatic wicket and go to the platform. We stored our luggage in the vast storage area of Amsterdam Centraal, again all automated, interaction is with a computer screen, you pay by the day or hour. There is an attendant to help if a problem occurs. There are also attendants at the Information booth to direct you if you are not sure where things are in this vast train station.

The Netherlands, population 18 million is a collection of Provinces,

Drenthe
Flevoland
Friesland (Fryslân)
Gelderland
Groningen
Limburg
North Brabant
North Holland
Overijssel
South Holland
Utrecht
Zeeland

The King Willem Alexander and Queen Maxima live in the Royal Capital of The Hague in the province of South Holland.

Utrecht in the history of Canada plays a role which influenced the political evolution of what was then New France. The Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713 and brought to an end the War of Spanish Succession between England and France. The immediate aims of Britain were achieved when the France were driven from the Spanish Netherlands and Italy, and the crowns of Spain and France would not be united.

The treaty recognized Queen Anne as the legitimate sovereign of England and officially ended French support for the claims of the Jacobite party to the British throne. France agreed to restore the entire drainage basin of Hudson Bay to Britain and to compensate the Hudson’s Bay Co for losses suffered during the war.

Moreover, Acadia, whose capital of Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal) had been captured by a New England expedition in 1710, was to pass to Britain, although France continued in possession of a part of the territory (modern New Brunswick) because of differences of interpretation in the size of the territory. Lastly, France retained Cape Breton, where it began to construct the fortress of Louisbourg and Ile Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island).

Utrecht has preserved its old town with its canals, it is very small area with beautiful houses and mansions, old churches and a cathedral.

This old church has been converted into condominiums and we lived in a small beautiful hotel just next to it.

View of the canal from our room. I highly recommend this little hotel in Utrecht, just charming and so well appointed. The bathroom was modern and big with a beautiful slate floor.

Again hundreds of bicycles parked along the canal. A city designed for people not cars.

The cathedral steeple under scaffoldings, it is the same height as an Apollo rocket or 112 meters high and dates from 1274 it is separated from the main body of the church because a storm 1674 collapsed half of the cathedral building and it was never rebuilt. Unlikely to be rebuilt now the Dutch are not a church going people.

In its original complete form c.1294

Today you can see the missing part separating the Church bell tower from the Nave main back part of the church. It was once the largest church in The Netherlands, it became a protestant Lutheran church in 1580 at the time of the Reformation.

City Hall of Utrecht next to St-Martin’s Cathedral.

At the time of the Reformation the iconoclast movement defaced and destroyed all religious images within many churches seen as idol worship. Here we see God the Father, Virgin Mary, baby Jesus and Apostles defaced.

The Utrecht Train Station area in the modern part of the city. Hudson’s Bay has a large store in Utrecht.

I took this picture for our Mayor Philip Brown to show him that you can have bicycle parking for more than one bicycle.

Utrecht also has wonderful restaurants, great cuisine. It is a peaceful city and very pleasant to walk around.

We returned to Amsterdam the next day by train but wished we had spent more time in Utrecht.

The inter-city train comfortable and clean took us back to Amsterdam Centraal in 20 minutes and we collected our luggage and walked over to the Cruise ship terminal next door. Again Amsterdam a city designed for people not cars.

We are back in Town

Tags

Amsterdam, art., Canada., Holland, life, Rijks Museum

It feels like we left years ago to travel to Europe on this latest vacation of ours. It has to be said that when you live on a small Island like PEI with its tiny population of 150K, you need to leave at least every 6 months simply to see something different.

This trip saw us travel to The Netherlands, Norway and the UK, plane, boat, train. I also want to acknowledge that in our 41 years together, our personal private travel is always arranged by Will who covers all details and always makes our travel interesting and fun.

We are well travelled and have been for 40 years, many places we visit are known to us because we either lived there at some point or been there numerous times in the past. So when we return to visit what we had not seen previously or re-visit places we want to rediscover. On this trip like others we stumbled upon wonderful restaurants and wine bars.

We left Charlottetown two days prior to our flight from Toronto to Amsterdam. We do this to avoid delays and cancelled flights out of Island, the weather in the Maritimes can be unpredictable and high winds or a storm can see cancelled flights. So we flew to Toronto and stayed at 1 King West which is a great hotel at reasonable rates and the staff is so nice.

I King West is at the cross roads of the 5 big banks in Canada, BMO, CIBC, TD, Nova Scotia and RBC all rivalling to have the highest tower or in the case of RBC infusing gold dust into its glass walls. It’s a nice area to be in and close to lots of bars and restaurants.

Amsterdam was our destination some 3 days prior to the cruise departure. It has become an expensive city like London, it remains a wonderful city to visit and is a pleasure to wander through the canal neighbourhood.

Our hotel was on Prinsengracht or Prince Canal. Of course like many cities in Europe, Amsterdam has thousands of people riding bicycles and lanes reserved to them along all streets. Not to forget that gasoline is $3.50 per litre + 23% VAT which is very expensive if you are filing up. We complain in PEI because our gas is $ 1.20 per litre and our VAT is 15%.

Of course in Amsterdam there are lots of coffee shops, good restaurants and wine bars but also lots to see and visit. We wanted to visit the RIJKS Museum, the last time we were in Amsterdam it was partially closed due to a multi year renovation. It is pronounced RIKES and the name means Imperial, until fairly recently the Netherlands had a huge colonial empire spanning the globe.

Here I am in front of the Rijks Museum around 09:00am, a little chilly that morning. We spent 2 days visiting the magnificent collections, you have to take your time to appreciate all that there is to see.

Another view of the Museum as we walked around it.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is the most visited Museum in the Netherlands. It houses over 1,000,000 pieces of artwork, documents and other important items associated with Dutch history. Although the museum as an institute has existed since 1800, it was originally founded in The Hague. The Rijksmuseum is currently able to present and display around 8000 objects at a given time and regularly changes its exhibitions throughout the year.

I took a few photos of the exhibits inside the museum, it is very varied, from paintings to sculptures, fine porcelain dishes, silver objects, wooden model ships, The Netherlands has a rich naval history, etc…

Charity the Educator by Italian artist Lorenzo Bartolini, sculpted in Florence 1842. Here we see a woman in the role of the Virtue Charity as Educator with two children pointing to a book encouraging the older child to read. This sculpture was part of a theme in Tuscany at the time on fostering education.

The view from the Batavian Embassy in Paris, C.1801 by Josephus Augustus Knip.  We see Place de la Concorde in Paris with the two famous building Hôtel de la Marine and Hôtel de Crillon before Napoleon had the Obelisk of Luxor placed in the square. The Ambassador of Batavia, Rutger Jan Schimmelpennick commissioned this painting.   Batavia was to become a few years later the Kingdom of Holland created by Napoleon for his brother and a few years after that the united Kingdom of The Netherlands under the Prince of Orange Nassau, William I. However the union did not last in 1830 the southern part separated and became the Kingdom of Belgium.

This room exquisite room of lacquer panels and fine Chinese porcelain was created by Elias and Tobias Nijmegen in 1695, the walls mounted with Chinese screens of coromandel lacquer. It originally stood in the Court Stadtholder Palace of Leeuwarden. It formed part of the apartment of Princess Albertine Agnes of Orange Nassau and she used this room to sit and drink tea imported from China, which at the time was a luxury.

The Rijks Museum also has special exhibits and one was by Erwin Olaf who matched his own modern photos with old master paintings and gave a narrative of what it meant to him. It was fascinating because you were drawn into the dialogue with the artist and invited to reflect on what he was saying.

Berlin Portrait 1, by Erwin Olaf. I took this picture in the museum and unfortunately it is not of good quality.  What drew me to this photo was the boy who strangely looks like me, our parents when we travelled abroad made us dress formally, jacket and tie and this photo brought back memories of those times when I was around 12 yrs old.

Here Olaf tells the story of being in an airport lounge and looking around at all the parents and their children. Olaf says he realized that the children had all the power, they moaned and complained, they controlled the holiday, virtually determining what was going to happen. Olaf says that he had an inspiration: he would work with those children and let them rule and banish the adults from their world.

Portrait of a girl in Blue, Johannes Verspronck, c. 1641 Oil on canvas.  Here Erwin Olaf selected this portrait of a little girl from a very wealthy family and says;  I think that this is one of the most extraordinary portraits at the Rijks Museum. I learned that sometimes you need only minimal means to achieve great power of expression. When you photograph you use a mechanical aid to register someone’s gaze but here Verspronck brings the subject to life by simply adding a dot of white paint in her eyes. She really is looking at you.

What I liked about this oil portrait is its delicacy and detail of the dress and how exquisite the paint brush is, it is so real you believe it is fabric you can touch. I agree that her gaze is full of life.

My visit to the Rijks Museum made me truly happy, the place is uplifting and confirmed why I so enjoy working in art galleries and visit museums. There is so much to learn and appreciate.

 

 

The Tulip of 2017

Tags

150, 1867-2017, 2017, Canada., Confederation, Holland, PEI, tulips

Next year 2017 will mark the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation which is the coming into a union of the original Provinces of Canada. Prior to 1867 British North America was administered from London as a group of colonies. England did not know what to do with its colonies in North America, the government in London did not really want any of it and would have been happy to give the lot away to the first who asked. The business leaders and local politicians in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, Quebec and Ontario knew this, so they came together to formalize a Union and form a new country Canada.

To mark the event some very inventive horticulturalist invented a new tulip with our National Colour, White and Red, it will be featured as of next year for the Tulip Festival in Ottawa and elsewhere in Canada. People can buy bulbs at hardware stores. It is a very nice tulip.  Of course the story of tulips in Canada are closely linked to the Royal Family of the Netherlands and the Dutch people. PEI has a large and prosperous Dutch community and tulips are grown here on farms.

 

 

This past week at the Museum

Tags

colville, Dutch, Europe, Flanders, Flemish painters., Holland, Mary Pratt, Monet, Netherlands, Painters, Rubens, Tronie

It was a busy week at the National Gallery of Canada, I attended several meetings with fellow docents, continued to plan the 24 lectures I am organizing for the new Season starting in September, I attended a staff meeting before the opening of the retrospective on Alex Colville who died in 2013. His daughter Ann was present and she said words about her parents who were married for 70 years and died within 7 months of each other, it was very touching and wonderful. Looking at his painting they are very personal, about every day life but there is also in some of them a certain tension.

Colville loved the movie ” No country for old men” a modern horror story. Some of his paintings have a gun resting on a table, it is just a gun but it is unnerving to just see it on a table and it makes you wonder what could happen. It is that tension that attracts your eye. Other paintings are of a couple, mostly him and his wife Rhoda in everyday situation. He was also a War Artist during the Second World War. He was at the Bergen Belsen Camp when it was liberated and those experiences haunted him though has his daughter said he never spoke much about it. There is also his love of animals and how he feels about them, he had many dogs and believed in their innate goodness. Those qualities of evil or deceit so frequent in humans is absent in animals unless they are taught. A very interesting man, though a social conservative and he did live in a small University town most of his life he was well connected to the world. The show is very well curated by Andrew Hunter of the Art Gallery of Ontario and Adam Welch of the National Gallery of Canada.

The artist Mary Pratt also gave a lecture on Thursday night, she worked with Colville, she is currently featured at the museum, with her paintings of Erotic Jellies, very nice.

I also presented two works of art, one being the Head of an Old women by Pierre Paul Rubens. I was startled by a visitor who was listening to my presentation and when I mentioned that the Dutch word for such a generic painting was Tronie, the lady told me that she was from the Netherlands  and spoke fluent Dutch, she said she had never heard the word. I was puzzled because I was sure I had read this description and was wondering if I might have made a mistake in my understanding. I looked it up and the word Tronie does exist but it is a 16th century Dutch word. Used by the artists of the time to describe a generic head or a head or face which cannot be identified with any one in particular or something grotesque. So I will have to specify that next time in my presentation. I like presenting this painting by Rubens because it leads into how painters like him worked and what was involved in their trade at the time.

We are also having a Monet exhibit in September about 14 of his paintings, one in particular Le Pont de Bois painted in 1872 shows a bridge being re-built across the Seine River near Paris after the destruction of the original one during the Franco-Prussian War. This painting was said to be on loan to us by an anonymous benefactor.

It turns out that the anonymous person is Josef Straus owner of JDS Uniphase, he bought the painting at Sotheby’s in London in June 2013 for about $11 million dollars. The proceeds of that sale were donated to UNICEF by the Estate of the previous owner Gustav Rau.

Straus is a longtime benefactor of the National Gallery of Canada.