The Golden Age of Flanders



The Golden Age of  Flanders 1277-1585

Today to AZ Sint Jan, six weeks exactly since I sprawled over an upstanding cobblestone and fell on my chin. Hoping for the best but geared up for the worst, I discovered that the jaw is healing well and the doctor said I can eat and speak immediately. I questioned the speed of re-entry but she said Oh no; eat nuts, meat, anything you like immediately. I was so elated that the threatened operation was not needed that I went immediately from the bus to Sint Paulus, my favourite bakery nearby, to buy bread and cheese. Felt good to ignore the yoghurt which I have been adding to smoothies in industrial quantities and to accept the congratulations of several of the staff who behaved as if I had done something clever! Then to Cafune, possibly the best coffee in town and near my place, to have a celebratory espresso and more good wishes before home. Fell upon the bread and cheese just purchased and about which I have dreamed for weeks, and ate lots, gingerly, as the left broken hinge hurts a lot when I try to eat. I ploughed on, as advised, and sealed the deal with a Leffe Blonde to make me possibly the happiest person in Brugge!! Eventually I made the first three physio appointments for next week, needing up to 18 sessions as my jaw has lost quite a lot of mobility. This news, strangely, adds to the gaiety of my family and indeed, it is not something I ever expected to write! However imperfect the jaw at the moment, it is nevertheless regenerating and with it, renewing my day to day life! For which many thanks.

 Oud Huis Amsterdam, Woensdagmarkt

Was able to go on Thursday evening to my favourite activity of the normal week; to spend time with the English-speaking group of Bruggelingen. Such fun for me to be welcomed warmly with celebratory Cava and lots of kisses. I met a member, new during my absence, who was refreshingly silly and with her Inner Child on prominent display while the usual members were on their usual form. How the jaw hinge hurt when I left, hours later, but it was worth every twinge!

Awoke with a smile and out in the centre have noticed that, unlike last year, when entire cafe terraces disappeared, this year, One Single Line of tables against the wall, is now allowed. So sensible. In the Markt, all the chalets are in place, with some already filled. The skating rink and the ghostly, gorgeous, spiky, silver 'trees' around it, are in position and ready for the Off. The Christmas Market is edging nearer to the last November weekend and hopefully, lots of festive visitors anxious to sample its pleasures. Brugge does love and need its tourists.

Christmas Market, skating rink

[The paragraphs above were written on or around November 23.
Following is written on December 5th.]

Oh dear, a gap forsooth. The above was written perhaps nearly two weeks ago, and not published because it was unfinished. The first week after The Reprieve, seemed in retrospect, to have been spent doing lots of activities I had missed so much since October 12. Then I have just had a lovely grandson and his gorgeous girl friend to stay for the opening weekend of the Christmas Market, been to a Saturday concert of guitar music by Alexander Makay in the Orgelzaal in the Munt followed by a washing and ironing Sunday when a friend called and packed away all my terrace furniture for me. Friendship indeed! The highlight of my first freedom week [after the speaking/eating ban was lifted], I went with four 'girl' friends on a day trip to Ghent which was marvellous. After my long withdrawal from society, it seemed particularly good to be able to go to an art exhibition and was quite the high-spot of the week, crowned as the outing was, with a super lunch in a canal-side bistro where I chose fish waterzooi with which I am becoming fixated!

 

And the concept behind the exhibition, entitled Voor God en Geld, or the Birth of Capitalism, was intriguing. The power behind the idea and the exhibition was Fernand Huts, Antwerp entrepreneur and art lover whose bold claim is that in essence, Flanders invented capitalism. He boasts, 'Our region was the Silicon Valley of the Middle Ages. For five centuries, we were the epicentre of the world. Later on, that position went to Genoa until it went bankrupt, then Amsterdam,, next London and now New York. But it remains an impressive story; we built capitalism, the rest merely copied it

 Fernand Huts & curator Katharina Van Cauteren

and refined it.' He draws the example of sky high prices for art in contemporary New York because the art scene is bolstered by a strong economy.

Thus the important mediaeval art scene in Flanders was a direct product of the economic success of the region's entrepreneurs. As cities developed, citizens too developed from the hierarchical nobility, clergy and commoners, previously farmers and peasants. Many became entrepreneurs and their accumulated wealth enabled them to show their status in acquiring art. He mentions an impressive list of mediaeval master artists like Breugel, Jan Van Eyck who invented oil paint, Memling and the Flemish Primitives, Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Teniers. The Flemish artists were the first to produce for what became the free market; before that time, everything was produced on client's commission, usually the Church or the aristocracy.
 

The exhibition itself is marvellously curated and arranged.  Its art exhibits trace the growth from the early Middle Ages and mediaeval man's strictly limited horizons

Albrecht Durer's terrifying Rhinoceros

to the opening up provided by exploration, shipping, arms technology, textiles, pilgrims, printing, trade and entrepreneurship, the search for luxury. Voor God en Geld provides some wonderful art from artists like Breughel and Memling but for me the greatest surprise and delight came from a totally unexpected appearance by Durer's Rhinoceros which I have always admired but never met in the armour, so to speak.

 Albrecht Durer self portrait 1500