Another very busy week; yet another hour in the dentist's chair; two
evenings of Dutch classes, three and a half hours an evening [which
feels a little excessive, given the slow pace of progress!]; a thank
you lunch with a friend who gave lots of help earlier in August at a
brunch for ten which I did; coffee at Hotel Martin with the
English-speaking 'ladies'! And so on.
But,
best of all, two Jane Austen Kent Branch friends came for a couple of
days and I had lots of fun showing them a few of the interesting
features of life in Bruges. I am not certain but I think the top of
their hit parade were the magical restoration works of Sint Donaas,
the tenth century cathedral demolished in the late eighteenth century
by the French and then the last session of the year of the ringing of
the Dumery bell by foot to commemorate the work of Joris Dumery [17]
the carillon-maker who installed the carillon in the Belfort [the
Beiard]. They were much taken by meeting the foot bell-ringer, Paul
vanden Abeele and his super wife, Jo. And I was delighted to meet
Maria, a 94 year old friend of the Abeele who lived nearby and who
always comes to witness the Ringing of the Bell. She insisted on
taking me into her immaculate four-bedroomed house to show me masses
of family photographs, including one of her husband in his wartime
naval uniform. He was unbelievably handsome!
And,
after their departure on Saturday afternoon, I joined friends to go
to a property in the weekend's annual Open Monuments Day, rather like
the Open Houses in London at this time of year. The first one I could
make was the Minnewaterkliniek on Professor Dr J Sebrechtsstraat, a
huge place comprising virtually one whole side of the street. Opened
as a hospital and built at the instigation of the redoubtable Dr
Sebrechts it is now an old people's home, complete with a splendid
chapel and in-house medical care both for the inmates and others
outside the home. It is a marvellously tranquil place with gardens to
the rear and ample parking in what was almost certainly part of the
original huge garden area.
A view from the garden of the chapel and a small part of the extensive buildings
of the Minnewaterkliniek
The
last visit of the afternoon was to the house of Louis Reckelbus,
1864-1958. I had never heard of Meneer Reckelbus but discovered
that he had been a watercolour artist of landscapes, city-scapes and
so on, eventually appointed to be Curator of the Groeninghe Museum. He
was among the first Belgian refugees during the First World War, to
flee to, and settle in, St Ives in Cornwall, an artists' colony where
he soon found an active place in the community and where he also sold
his paintings to raise money to help his fellow refugees. He
described St Ives, when he returned home to his birthplace of Brugge,
as 'a little unspoiled Paradise', quite a tribute from one born and bred in Brugge.
A Reckelbus painting, an artist unknown to me till now!
His
house too was a little Paradise; he had bought it in three separate parts, the first in August 1909 and the final in September 1937, gradually renovating it. Today, after earlier threats of demolition, it survives as an architect's stylish offices with a lovely
garden at the back, bounded by a canal, and with a kitchen of particular note. It has
been 'modernised' relatively recently but with sufficient of the original tiles
left in place to make one long to see it as it was. There is a
treasure, apparently guarded in secrecy by Louis Reckelbus, at the
top of the stairs; it is no more than significant fragments of a fresco
depicting the Nativity, probably fifteenth century; the face of the
Madonna is particularly serene and beautiful and must have given the
artist untold pleasure each time he clambered up the rather difficult
stairs. It was a privilege to be allowed to see inside this building. And wonderful to have discovered Louis Reckelbus and his art.
Magical to have such an exquisite fresco remaining in part, in a private house.
Michele, my invaluable translator, and I had a full programme of Open Monuments on Sunday with the morning promising exceptional interest. We had a guided tour of the
on-going restoration work in the Gruuthuse Museum and also in Onze
Lieve Vrouwekerk, the Church of Our Lady, the huge and important church where Michelangelo's Madonna and Child are on display. I
think I found the Gruuthuse tour particularly good with a super guide
and an early mediaeval building for which one felt an instinctive
empathy, its earlier grandeur slightly down-at-heel; its magnificence, a little shabby. Rather like an ageing Queen caught without the usual attention to detail. It was obviously being rescued from serious deterioration
with wet rot abundant, tiled floors under centuries of dirt and wear,
painted wood and walls faded beyond recognition. The restoration so
far is Seriously Good, beginning towards the end of last year, and to
continue until an advertised 2015 though, as the guide told us,
almost every step of the way, as one piece of restoration is begun,
another need for remedial work becomes visible. The finish date may
well yet be pushed back to allow for more work as more decay is
uncovered. Undoubtedly there is EU money involved, probably finance
also from the city and from the regional government too.
Restored crests amid both old and new wood.
The
tour started in the attics where an apparently new mediaeval tiled
floor stretched before us. The restoration of this huge pavement had
revealed two unsuspected colours of tiles forming a regular pattern and we saw another floor
area in the same attic, still untouched, and simply unrecognisable in
its dirt and ageing with a heavy mantel of earth and centuries of use. The
ample beams and lower roof timbers had all been restored and the
motto of the Gruuthuse family, 'Plus est en vous' [que vous pensez,
being implied] was written in beautiful script over many of the
beams. This was the motto of Lodewijk Gruuthuse, 1422-1492, who built
this palace originally, and means that there is more in you than you
realise. A splendidly inspiring motto for a group [as in Gordonstoun
which has also taken this same motto] but our guide emphasised that
it did, in fact, refer to the great man, Lodewijk, himself, almost
everything he did being an extension of his ego! The numerous
repetitions displayed upon the attic beams of Plus est en vous were
not, apparently, done on behalf of Lodewijk, but the result of a
little over-exuberance on the part of the firm, Delasenserie, which
undertook a major renovation during the 1920s and which is, interestingly, in charge
of the present operation.
Lodewijk, diplomat, soldier, aristocrat, patron and his motto
Plus est en vous
The
tour took in various rooms, in differing stages of renovation; the
little chapel, virtually joined to the OLV church next door, had been
almost gutted in the restoration process, though its beautiful ceiling which merged into an apse
at one end, was entire. Below the apse, a window seat with windows
which opened on to, and into, OLV and which permitted the
less-committed church-goers in the mediaeval Gruuthuse, to claim they had
breathed the holy air, when both windows at one end and door at the
other, were left open.
The beautiful little Gruuthuse chapel, awaiting further attention
The church inside, was highly polluted with thick layers of dust and soot, cracks in walls and vaults, and damage from fungi and beetles. The current phase of renovation takes in the choir, the choir aisle, the sacristy and the transcript. The renovations in the huge church itself are impressive with the
main enemy, again the water. It is quite a feat to keep open an
important and busy church for the faithful, plus accommodate an
unceasing army of visiting tourists anxious to tick off the
Michelangelo on their list. It is being accomplished with the major
part of the building closed behind scaffolding and plastic sheets for
restoration and will be thus until the end of 2015. There is a fixed budget [of 1.538 million, the majority of which has come from the Flemish community.] so
difficult decisions are being made as further unsuspected decay is
revealed and plans for expensive gilding, or some replacement, have
to be shelved. Renovation on this scale, and under the twin pressures
of worship and tourism, is a daunting task but the renovator who
spoke to us showed photos of utterly painstaking work being done with
a tiny scalpel and infinite patience. Astonishing and humbling.
One restored corner of a large stone tablet rather sums up the power of restoration.
So many secrets of this ancient city uncovered in just one week. The Open Monuments weekend is intended for Bruggelings, not tourists, [hence only Dutch spoken] and it was heartening to see considerable interest and pride in their civic inheritance, displayed in the numbers attending and the keenness shown. But the great interest in the hidden Sint Donaas Kathedral and the esoteric ringing of the old bell in memoriam, by tourists like my visitors is also gratifying. Brugge really is a treasure trove for those who look a little beyond the beautiful surface, stunning though that is.
