Rik Wouters and Old England

Five of the ‘girls’ including me, from the Hotel Martin’s coffee morning each week, went to Brussels for a Day Out last Friday. I love sight seeing alone generally but a small group outing is hard to beat! We had an unbelievable amount of chat and shared moments throughout the day but the two main objects of desire, Museum of Musical Instruments in the building marked Old England, and the Musee des Beaux Arts for the Rik Wouters’ exhibition, more than lived up to expectations. The Old England is part of the Art Deco and Art Nouveau treasures of Brussels and is a delight to see. The museum itself with over 2000 historical musical instruments on several floors offers myriad interesting and often arresting examples of musical art. We had lunch in the restaurant on the top floor and that is stunning in its architecture and views. We genially tolerated the slow service [too many diners with too few staff] as we talked and feasted on the glorious windows and ironwork. Almost all of the senses were satisfied when I tasted my boudins blancs et noirs with apple. It is a mark of maturity to savour the disparate sensory pleasures in a conscious way which we did, rather noisily.

 Dame en Bleu Devant Une Glace
 

 Nel, Rik Wouters' wife and muse

Afterwards a stroll to the Musee des Beaux Arts to see the first day of the Rik Wouters’ exhibition. I had never heard of Rik Wouters till two members of my English group at the Amsterdam on Thursdays told me about him and said an exhibition of his work was coming to Brussels. Next morning, before leaving for the station, I Googled and discovered the exhibition was opening that very day. I am SO grateful not to have missed it. It is a large and important retrospective of his work with loans from many collectors, virtually one hundred years after his early death in Amsterdam in July 1916 at the premature ago of 33. He was a prolific artist, given his short and rather sad life, and considered avant garde throughout that life. How bereft Nel, his wife, muse and inspiration, must have felt when he died, she having been almost entirely his sole model; they must have spent almost all their time together. He was a Fauvist painter and sculptor, influenced greatly by his hero, James Ensor, and later by Cezanne and Renoir. Indeed, there are distinct echoes of Impressionism in his highly colourful work which consists almost entirely of domestic scenes. His sculpture is memorable; many busts of Nel in different guises; several of children, my absolute favourite being the clay model [for a subsequent bronze] of Baby Dribbling. I think it could evoke maternal emotions in the average female S.S.guard. Particularly impressive is the three quarter length model of a middle aged James Ensor. There is a majestic presence about it which commands attention and respect.

The majestic James Ensor

As a gentle start to the following day’s post-excursion fatigue, after my Saturday coffee at Cafune, to the Sue Ryder Boutique in Katelijnestraat to take clothes I love but never seem to wear. Unusually, I took time to look around and was rewarded with a frightfully upmarket black and white, slightly padded jacket by Anne Belin of which label I have never heard though the assistant adopted a most respectful attitude towards it which impressed! And then home to read the excellent New York Times, a favourite occupation these days, made all the more desirable since I have learned it is on Trump's list of Despised Media apparently peddling Fake News.

Post Script

Wandering homewards Saturday early afternoon, I saw an interesting group of jesters on the Markt. Further investigation revealed one elf was carrying a Brugse Zot carrier bag so it was perhaps not an expression of group levity; just an advertising stunt. 

One giant chief with his elves

Give music a chance

Realised suddenly on Tuesday March 2^nd that it was the sixtieth anniversary of my wedding in 1957.

My first husband died just over a year ago so I am the sole survivor left wondering what on earth happened between 1957 and now. Sixty years unbelievably happened and I hardly noticed the speed

  Summertime, and the living was easy.

of the journey, so busy was I in keeping on, keeping on, as Alan Bennett might say. I DO notice the accelerated speed now of the passage of a day, a week, a month, in common with the elderly everywhere. And I do remember that one year seemed an eternity when I was very young. Even the six weeks’ summer holiday used to stretch luxuriously ahead when we had a lifetime of no school, playing in our gang in the woods near home, organising competitions, giving shows on top of the barricade [erected to stop Hitler and his acolytes from driving up our country lane and there long after the war had finished!], having picnics and games in the long narrow garden full of Mum’s dahlias, making the annual trip to the cinema, hugely anticipated. Oh yes, six weeks then was a gift of gold to me and my sisters.

On Saturday I went with a friend to the Concertgebouw to see Anima Eterna performing Gershwin. The concert itself was a total joy with a new discovery for me of Claron McFadden, an American soprano of inspiring rhythm and great warmth. She so clearly enjoyed herself and the orchestra so clearly adored her. It was an infectiously happy occasion. However, en route to this important concert hall in ‘t Zand, I had been stunned to see what appeared to be the aftermath of

Claron McFadden performing
in Amsterdam

 't Zand under siege. Trees will be planted
within the circles on the right.
Note the reduced space for café terraces!

Sarajevo. I hadn’t been there since the end of January when the dismantling of the splendid fountain was just beginning in the first phase of the redevelopment of 't Zand, estimated to finish in June. The entire area has been dug up but worse, so has much of the surrounding area too; the devastation extends into Steenstraat, one of the two major shopping streets of the city. And goes behind and to the side of the Concertgebouw. It makes the Concertgebouw and adjoining cafe and In en Uit, the major tourist information centre accessible only by muddy duckboards while restaurants, cafes and bars which line 't Zand are similarly besieged. Cannot be good for business; I certainly resolved not to go to two evening concerts towards the end of this month because the approach from any direction is unlit and perilous. And I now don’t dare attempt perilous!

 Geef musiek een kans

In the Concertgebouw I discovered that the Music Fund was in action. People were donating old instruments to be given new lives and provide support for musicians in conflict areas and developing countries. Since 2005, the organisation has collected over 4000 instruments of which more than half were immediately ready to be played and sent off to partner projects in Africa, the Middle East and Central America. The fund also assists in training specialists in music instrument repair and in contributing to musical dialogue between Europe and the rest. We arrived apparently between acts as there was a running programme throughout the day of jazz and pop, piano, gospel plus the afore-mentioned opera/jazz singer Claron McFadden providing a musical intermezzo. Worth spending the day here next year!!

Before beginning this blog, I hurried off to Aux Merveilleux de Fred, a palace to coffee and little cakes, opened over a year ago in the Eiermarkt. I haven't been for some time and had rather forgotten the chandelier, the busy patissiers at work in the window before an audience of admiring tourists outside, and especially the enticing little confections on display. I bought four tiny, frothy bonbons for coffee with a new friend who was coming round later and proudly carried the chic dainty little container home giving thanks yet again for the proximity of Good Things in Brugge!

 A merveilleux sight chez Fred!