Death and Art

Not news from, but news in, Brugge and the rest of Europe comes the death of Simone Veil who died yesterday, June 30, aged 89.. This Auschwitz survivor lived, when many of her family died, and went on to carve out a magnificent career for herself. She was Minister of Health under Giscard d’Estaing, President of the European Parliament, Honorary President of the Fondation pour la Memoire de la Shoah, Member of the Academie Francaise. Need I go on? Perhaps her most courageous act was to push through legislation for the legalisation of abortion in January 1975. Quite an achievement forty years ago in a country like France with its deeply traditional and Roman Catholic roots.

In the meantime I despair when I hear and read of the state of British politics with the inflexible Theresa and the D.U.P. support package involving real money with apparently no insistence that D.U.P. policy moves to support gay marriage and abortion though the latter, strangely, managed to garner sufficient support for meaningful legislation in Parliament. Brexit continues its downhill path of UK destruction while Corbynmania allows the mirage of a Labour electoral victory in sight when a majority of voters will not support Really Left policies. What’s not to like in the Labour manifesto? Nothing save the impossibility of affording it all.

 The Haymaker by Emile Claus. 1896

But to return to Beloved Brugge or rather, yesterday, to Ghorgeous Ghent. A friend and I returned to the Caermersklooster, in Patershol, to see another marvellous exhibition in this former Carmelite monastery. Entitled, Rooted, it displays Flemish art from 1880-1930. Much of the exhibition is of paintings from private collections and demonstrates a major turning point in Flemish art history against the backdrop of the development of Belgium as a leading industrial nation. The early works were painted by a group of Belgian Impressionists who had left the grime and overcrowding of industrial Ghent for the pastoral paradise of villages along the River Leie. These light and picturesque works by Gustave Van de Woestyne, Emile Claus, George Minne and Valerius De Saedeleer, are the most romantic and beautiful of the entire exhibition and show the nostalgia the artists felt towards the rapidly-departing pastoral idyll of earlier nineteenth century life. All these paintings are done before the First World War and, with the onset of war, the tone and style changes abruptly as artists flee Belgium and
become immersed in the international art scene.

Woman on a Bicycle. Hubert Malfait 1924

The pastoral gives way to the metropolitan; scenes, again based on ordinary lives, now picture images of cafe interiors, fairs, circuses, the music hall and modern pursuits like cycling. The pictures of Gustave de Smet, Frits Van den Berghe, Constant Permeke and Edmund Tytgat are individually striking and contrast dramatically and urgently with the earlier Romanticism on view. Two of my favourite Flemish artists feature; James Ensor in his Oostende studio and Rik Wouters in his domestic Paradise; both are idiosynchratically expressive but somehow a little apart from the general tide of art history.

One visitor enjoying a ride on the carousel

I did enjoy the manner of display in this Rooted exhibition; several small rooms are furnished with items of furniture contemporary to the paintings and one space has an imaginative version of a carousel to echo the circus theme. Delightful and light-hearted as a backdrop to an exhibition of outstanding works from radical and influential Flemish painters of the day. Worth seeing twice!

Zomer by Gustave de Smets 1913



  Open air school in Astridpark

And just as a passing observation; I noticed last week how many school parties there seemed to be roaming the streets and squares of Brugge then the penny dropped! School finished yesterday and pupils and teachers alike were unwinding in thankful preparation. Still three weeks to go in the UK before the longed-for Summer break!

Universal Genius Par Excellence



Horse's Head by Giorgio Vasari.
[in exhibition]

In search of cultural refreshment, I visited the new Leonardo exhibition in Oud Sint Jan on Sunday morning. It is billed as a World Premiere as, after Brugge, it travels Europe-wide. I do vaguely remember a similar idea for a Leonardo exhibition which featured models of some of his sketches, in the Poor Priests’ Hospital in Canterbury as part of the Festival 1985. This current exhibition is mind-blowing in its extraordinary scope and size; there are over a hundred models made from Leonardo’s sketches and demonstrate the quite extraordinary genius of the man. Indeed, Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, 1568, describes Leonardo [1452-1519] as: an example of an artist transcending nature when, ‘a single person is marvellously endowed by Heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men behind.’

 

One can imagine that illegitimacy was despised and ridiculed during the fifteenth century but Leonardo was saved from ignominy in his mother, Caterina's, peasant family because his father, a rich notary living in Vinci near to Firenze, took him into his household and provided a basic school education. Ser Piero da Vinci, eventually recognising his son's extensive talents, persuaded friend, Andrea del Verrocchio, to take the boy into his workshop to shape his creativity. So, good fortune in his early days provided Leonardo with creative training and his matchless curiosity and innate creativity carried him per ardua ad astra.

 Ginevra de' Benci  1474/8

His painting was almost faultless with its wonderful use of sfumato and chiaroscuro though he did acquire a reputation for not always finishing commissions. In spite of Leonardo's mastery of portraits

 Lady with Ermine
Accomplished portrait of
Cecilia Gallerani
1490

and his astonishing anatomical drawings in surviving notebooks, the exhibition is memorable chiefly for the superlative array of wooden weapons and defensive models constructed from his drawings.

There are inventive and enormous catapults and several cannon ball-launching machines; assault cars and any number of ingenious devices involving ladders, projectiles and protective armour for the mediaeval soldier. One cone-shaped assault car is credited with being the inspiration for the modern tank.
Walking round wondering is to be in the skin of a mediaeval general, given the key to a mediaeval gallery of prototypes of weapons and armour designed to make him ecstatically impregnable on the battlefield. Leonardo was an Engineer Extraordinaire and an Inventor of Defence and Weaponry Par Excellence. And this doesn't touch on his genius with hydraulics, aeronautics, architecture, measurement.

One tends, now, to think of Leonardo da Vinci as, primarily, an artist, though he left quite a small body of work behind; 15 or 16 paintings in total though containing wonderfully realised compositions such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper but my favourites are Lady with Ermine and Ginevra de’Benci [1474/8] However, contemporaneously, he was admired and sought principally as an engineer and inventor, especially in the realms of warfare. The art of warfare ranked first in the list of arts and clearly Leonardo was entranced by it for most of his life.



Cone-shaped armoured car surmounted
by a small tower. Armoured
wooden exterior defended by  
low perimeter cannons.

Many of da Vinci's sketches were clever dreams, unrealisable at the time because of the weight of the materials available. But, this Renaissance Man's inventions often pre-dated by hundreds of years, the actual appearance of machines imagined by him. His 'aerial screw' drawing has notes ....' If this instrument made with a screw be well made -- that is to say, made of linen of which the pores are stopped up with starch-- be turned swiftly, the said screw will make it spiral in the air and it will rise.'
His idea of compressing air to obtain flight is similar to the principle behind today's  helicopters, the first of which was made in the 1940s.


 Leonardo da Vinci, self portrait, 1512/15

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

                              

 The matchless beauty of Ginevra de' Benci,
as portrayed by Leonardo in 1474/8

 

Brugge Blog from Britain

 St Augustine's Abbey ruins

Lovely to see Canterbury again; I used to go for coffee and shopping twice a month when I lived in Wye and always enjoyed it. I am more sensitised to city gates since living in Brugge so that I nodded appreciatively to the Westgate, England’s largest city gate still standing, as I passed by. Canterbury has its own UNESCO designation covering the wonderful Cathedral, the atmospheric remains of St Augustine’s Abbey and St Martin’s. The Cathedral with its exceptional early stained glass and memorial

 6th Century St Martin's Church

to Thomas Becket, the Archbishop murdered there in 1170,  boasts Bell Harry Tower which has dominated the city for hundreds of years and is a notable landmark for miles. St Augustine's, founded by St. Augustine in 597 A.D. was a centre of learning and spirituality for almost a thousand years until the unfortunate intervention of Henry V11in 1538 with the Dissolution of the Monasteries, while St Martin's, the first church built in England and in continuous use since the 6th century, stands nearby. A truly exceptional and historical trio in this World Heritage Site.
 



Not entirely beautiful outside, but a great
addition to Canterbury life. 

Memory lane took me to Caffe Nero and for a quick peep at the Marlowe Theatre nearby, scene of many a past theatrical evening out. I happened to pass the Chaucer Bookshop which I love and from where I once bought an old [and expensive!]map of Kent for in a special present plus one or two from the delicious array of second-hand and antiquarian books. It is a real bookshop for book-lovers. I just had a couple of sunny hours in the centre of the city and located the recommended but new-to-me Curzon cinema, tucked away in a side street and now open for two years. It has the flavour of a cinema club with a cafe and it is adventurous and delightful. I really savoured the mid-town atmosphere with more students than I have ever seen there before. Canterbury felt young and thriving and I was inspired to pop into Cath Kidston’s to buy a handbag in the sale. I shall remember that delightful afternoon every time I behold its rich blue, spotted solid shape.

Wye on the following four days was even more beautiful than I had remembered and just as friendly and welcoming as expected. It was a real delight to be back and even my Monday evening talk to the Arts Association went down well in spite of sauna-like temperatures. Almost best of all was the lunch

 Wye, 1934 vintage

for wimmin born in 1934 of whom there were eight of us identified when I lived there. One of us was indisposed but the remaining seven had a most relaxed and amusing time lazing the afternoon away in a lovely garden, with timeless views of the golden village cricket field beyond.

And during that Wye weekend, it was back to the Stour Festival, an annual feast of' Early Music in All Saints Church, Boughton Aluph, about two miles outside the village. Mark Deller, son of the fabled counter tenor Alfred, runs it still though it was launched by his father in 1962. There are five concerts each weekend over the last two weekends in June and the setting is idyllic. Marquees for food and drink , rural Kentish landscape and Baroque music in a beautiful old church; what more could one ask? The Festival is a whole world somehow caught in a social aspic; one sees the same people, in certain fashions; courtesy and bonhomie abound; friendships are renewed; wonderful music is shared and savoured and even if it rains, the sun always shines somehow.

All Saints, Boughton Aluph, before
the annual Baroque Festival.

The first half of my ten away-days took me to Nottinghamshire, to my sister’s farm, and little outings with my sister in her wheelchair; the very best was a visit to the lane where we had grown up, only about seven miles from her present residence of nearly sixty years. The tiny house, number 14, was identified and miraculously the wood adjacent to our house where we had played with our gang at being ‘bombed out’ in WW2, and where we had climbed so many trees over seventy years ago, was unbelievably, still there! It is now part of a small country park and ‘our’ part remains. We wandered in the sun, delighted to be back, with memories re-kindled and brains sharpened. A great idea from my sister’s younger son re-kindled some of the best experiences of our childhoods, accessing a veritable store house of submerged memories.

 My sister, forgetting she has Alzheimer's,
and I on a lovely sunny outing to les temps perdus.

 

Here is Now

The trouble with the gorgeous hot weather is that it is ….SO hot. At least two days this week have been around 32 degrees, unbearable for me though I love to see sunlit mediaeval buildings, the sun-dappled squares and streets, and the terrace nodding gently in the unaccustomed heat. So walks are early where practical and outings as near to Woensdagmarkt as is possible!

Jeruzalemkerk
 

Thus I thought of Jeruzalemkerk, feeling guilty that it is over a year since I last visited this little gem, my favourite ecclesiastical spot in Brugge. There is the added attraction of a current exhibition by Aleksandar Avramovic, a Serbian artist who lives in Brussels. Along the canyons, half in bright sun, half in welcome shadow, I wandered towards Jerusalemstraat and the welcome cool of the beautiful old interior of the small chapel, the floor space dominated by the memorial to Anselm Adornes and his wife, Margareta van der Banck.

The chapel was built in 1428 by the grandfather of Anselm in imitation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, but its subsequent fame sprang from Anselm himself. Born in 1424, he became a diplomat, patron, politician, merchant, the fifth generation of his family, originally from Genoa, to live in Brugge. In 1468, he travelled to Scotland at the head of a mission to negotiate the return of Scottish merchants to Bruges after their withdrawal by King James 111 the previous year. His negotiations with King and Parliament were successful and so began a strong friendship between Adornes and James, one which subsequently favoured the Belgian with lands, finance and honours, including Knight of the Order of the Unicorn and a Baronetcy. A journey to the Holy Land by Adornes in 1470 was supported by both Kings of Scotland and of England, and he represented the Scottish Crown in Rome and ‘among the Muslems of the East’.




Memorial plaque to Anselm Adornes
in Linlithgow

Adornes made a number of diplomatic trips to Scotland over the next ten years and in 1482 commanded a military expedition to Linlithgow on behalf of King James. A subsequent pilgrimage saw him lodging in a monastery at Linlithgow where he was murdered by a marauding gang. He is buried there and his heart eventually returned to Jeruzalemkerk and his family. An extraordinary life.




Equally extraordinary is the fact that, seventeen generations after Anselm Adornes’ death, his descendants, the Limburg Stirum family, still own the Adornes’ domain and are dedicated to keeping the estate alive through public access and a variety of cultural events like the Avramovic exhibition, entitled, 'Here is Now'.  The work is interesting with the emphasis on moments in the present, experienced Now. I liked several immensely; two especially of older people together sharing a moment of tenderness, another of mutual support. There are bold sweeping strokes visible in some painting while others are almost photographic in their minute accuracy. I liked the swimmer in mid-dive; the old man descending from a mountain bent with age or fatigue, violin carefully held in one hand; a man shushing someone unseen, perhaps you, the viewer.



 Chuut by Aleksandar Avramovic

Oostende voor Anker

The day after Ascension Day, to Ostend to visit the 'boat girls' from the Wednesday morning coffee at Hotel Martin's. They live on their boats, with their husbands, in Brugge, on the Coupure, from

 The Giants of Dendermonde

October to May and then depart to travel the waterways of Europe. Except that this year, Sandy and Brett are retiring from what can be a strenuous life, to Woodbridge for a permanent berth. Both boats left a week ago and are still in Oostende hence our little visit which also coincided happily with an annual celebration called Oostende Voor Anker, Ostend at Anchor.

 Mercator

The superb weather provided a perfect backdrop as we boarded a train for the coast, packed with holiday-makers. First, to the zeilschip Mercator only just returned from extensive renovation. Mercator is the last training ship for officers and seamen of the Belgian merchant fleet; between 1932 and 1960, this was where cadets were initiated into life at sea. Since 1964, Mercator has been at anchor in Ostend; it is described as a three masted barquantine and now serves as a splendid museum run by volunteers. The very recent renovation was paid by Belgium and the E.U. but the finance only covered the external work which was extensive; the equally comprehensive interior up-date has been done by a group of volunteers and done brilliantly. A visit to Mercator gives an amazing insight into earlier maritime life.

From the delights of Mercator, we went to visit Clair and Andy on their boat. Access involved

 A temporary taste of the high life.

clambering over five boats at anchor, sides touching, in the harbour after which we were rewarded with cooling drinks and shade from the merciless sun on a very hospitable boat. We then reversed our scrambles to find Sandy’s boat at anchor alongside the pontoon, and once aboard, silently acknowledging in my case that I am not now up to living easily on a boat, clambered up to a little top deck with large parasol, and table with chairs. We sat there, talking and drinking, for ages, luxuriating in the breeze and enjoying the panorama of boats and flags, set against tranquil water and summer skies. Perfection.


 

 

But we had also come to see the Reuzen van Dendermonde, yet another procession, a major folk event listed since 2005 in the UNESCO World Heritage sites. The giants, Indiaan, Mars and Goliath, proved, indeed, to be gigantic, propelled by unseen gymnasts on stilts, hidden beneath colourful costumes. There was a uniformed handsome band and lots of children in costume dashing about. The Belgians do love their ancient processions, and tourists and visitors alike, are all caught up in admiration as they soak up the atmosphere.

 The George Stephenson on the Thames

When the procession had passed, our temporarily-resident guide, Clair, suggested we walk on to visit the George Stephenson steamship which happened to be berthed briefly in Ostend, en route to the Chatham Dockyard [for a visit by Prince Charles, no less!]. I had never heard of this particular vessel but visiting it turned out to be such an unexpected treat. The interior is incredibly beautiful with many pipes, plates, handles, hooks, wheels, taps made of copper and brass and polished to within an inch of their lives. The cumulative patina on view is dazzling! I particularly loved the radiators which were little works of art. The entire vessel spoke volumes of the love and care of the staff and the owner, Faas [Servaas] Strik, who sat in some state in the main dining, bar area, answering queries from visitors. From him we learned a little about the boat and, intrigued, I subsequently went online and discovered the astonishing short history of the boat with its historical components.
 

 The wheelhouse, buffed to perfection

The keel for the George Stephenson was laid in 2006 but it took until early 2014 for the ship to be completed as it is now and owner, Faas Strik, continues to further perfect it. Although the
apparently historic ship is, in fact new, its interior and exterior contain all kinds of historic treasures. Some examples culled from the SWZ Maritime magazine published in November 2014 after its editors had been invited aboard to view the ship prior to its initial launch:

• The cabin has a radiator that dates back to 1920 and which stems from a French fishing vessel.
• The wooden floors come from an English passenger vessel that was scrapped in 1935 in Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht, the Netherlands.
• The timber on the walls come from the doors of the former Defence department building in Paris.
• The solid wood interior doors stem from the ships, the Kenya Castle and Windsor, of the Union-Castle Line and the Norway.
  The round door knobs were acquired from the US navy and twist both ways for safety reasons.
• The ship's sanitary fittings, such as the sink and toilet, are originals made by the important English inventor Thomas Crapper (1836-1910).
• The bronze anchor chain stems from an English mine sweeper of the HAM class from 1952.
• The steel bow anchor was acquired from the British navy.
• The steam whistle come from a steam tug from New York.
• The teak decks come from a school building that was built in 1888 in Bombay.
• There is no new wood on board this ship.
  

  

   Radiator as work of art

  So, the George Stephenson is the determined product of one man’s maritime obsession and when the result is so incredibly beautiful and interesting, a unique piece of floating history, we may salute obsession in its finest form!

 Elderly replicas, one from Portugal, one from Spain,
of the boats which set off to explore the New World.
They were anchored next to Andy and Clair's boat.
They are astonishingly tiny to have taken on a mighty ocean!

Holy Days and Processions

I must stop buying plants to beautify my terrace; I am not really a gardener for I treat my terrace as I did my Kentish garden; as an outside room to be made as decorative as possible while retaining basic functionality. That said, a sunny Wednesday [May 24th], a crowded market transferred to the Burg temporarily to make way for the seating for tomorrow's Holy Blood Procession and a wealth of flowers and plants on stalls beneath the trees and around the huge bronze statue, Les Amoureux.
Et voila! I bought flowers as usual [this week, luscious paeonies] AND a splendid plant. Soon there will be no room for people!

 Les Amoureux spooning beneath the chestnut spires
in the Burg.

To coffee with the girls this morning at Hotel Martin's in Oude Burg and the town is at its best; young foliage, chestnut spires, bright sunshine and thousands of bewitched tourists. The flower and plant display in the Burg markt is the prettiest ever; stalls overflow with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, nectarines, peaches. May, the loveliest month, presents a visual feast but the news from Britain with the deaths of so many young people in Manchester is unbearably sad, wretchedly nihilistic, utterly wasteful of young life and potential. The young terrorist was, perhaps, also among the victims of a mystifying, anarchic, destructive ideology. And it is still May. Read a lovely quote recently about the month of May by Samuel Scoville in his Wild Folk. Not a major writer, one might assume; sounds American, folksy, a minor rural writer one might say. But his lyricism about the most special of months, arrests the attention:
Honey-sweet May, when the birds come back and the flowers come out and the air is full of the sunrise scents and songs of the dawning year.
Simple and inspiring.

 Paul van Abeele, he of the Dumery bell, playing a portable
klokkenspiel in the procession.



And early this morning [Thurs 25th] walking back from swimming in the Crowne Plaza pool, I was struck by the absolute silence in the streets; it is Ascension Day, a Feestdag, and as a Belgian friend observed yesterday, a Holy Day. This last thought had never occurred to me and I doubt there are many English people who would describe it as such. But this is still a Roman Catholic country though active church-going I hear, is on the decrease. However, a Feestdag so, deserted, waking, sunlit streets lacked buses, cars and people at 6.00 and again at 7.00 this morning and it was magical.

 Rounding a tight corner from Oude Burg into
Wollastraat.

For the Procession of the Holy Blood, I chose not to occupy my seat in the Markt; the bank of seating was in the full sun and untenable for me. Much better, in fact, to roam the streets and photograph and view from the shadows of tall buildings. I had not expected anything so major; the whole production is massive and impressive with often glorious costumes and seemingly no expense spared. Now can't remember how many donkeys were taking part, six at least, four dromedaries, maybe a dozen Shire Horses [not sure of the Belgian equivalent], a little flock of sheep and scores of compliant, happy children in mediaeval garb.

One of the donkeys displaying its customary sang-froid

The centrepiece is the Relic, a cloth with  the alleged blood of Jesus Christ, brought to the city by Thierry of Alsace after the 12th century Second Crusade. The Procession of the Holy Blood seems to have emerged as a civic ceremony by the late thirteenth century. Instituted in 1303, the ceremonial procession commemorates the deliverance of the city, by the national heroes Jan Breydel and Pieter de Conynck from French tyranny in May of the previous year, and which takes place on Ascension Day. Bruges residents of the area perform an historical re-enactment of the phial's arrival together with similar dramatizations of Biblical events. For this secular spectator, the stunning historical continuity is the most impressive with splendid costumes and wigs, coming a close second.

 A masterly touch; Himself with baby

A Beautiful Cake

Things have slipped, as my mother might have said. It must be two weeks since my last blog partly due to being occupied elsewhere; partly due to age-related sloth and procrastination ! It was lovely going for four days to Cologne for a 50^th birthday party with the opportunity to stay in a tasteful, calm minimalist apartment, white and spare, but with lots of time in the flat of the birthday boy and his husband which closely resembles an over-the-top Victorian melodrama set. Almost every inch of wall adorned with pictures, many of Brugge [at least 30]; a positive 'fishes and loaves' crowd of Jesus statues and statuettes, [at least a hundred] on surfaces already crowded with ceramics, objets d'art, photographs, books, figurines, mementoes; lots of interesting furniture including at least two harmoniums [harmonia?] clamouring to be noticed; swags and bows and sweeping curtains adorning doorways, all adding to a busy but authentic and dramatic whole. I could add, politically incorrectly, those suffering from excess weight, and those suffering from claustrophobia, abandon hope! Enter not despite the very warm welcome awaiting.

The party itself was a jolly affair including a two or three hour concert with individual friends singing or playing the piano and several groups including fine singing from the Church choir organised by the birthday boy himself. Plus a great buffet and a most artistic cake. The Master of Ceremonies, a friend who organises important musical festivals as his day job, performed a dramatic excerpt from The Magic Flute though he is not a singer. He also wore a pair of Chris Vos shoes from Brugge pictured nearby. Not a shy man you will deduce!

Further work has been done on my terrace, especially when son and his wife were here for a few days till yesterday, Sunday. We visited Damme for coffee where I took the opportunity to buy a beautiful top from the Very Chic Indigo. We were actually en route to Bomberna near Maldeghem, a superb garden centre where one could spend at least half a day, sustained both by the cafe and the huge range and display of plants. It is a place where the whisper of a regret at the willing loss of a little garden can be heard. But I restrained myself and bought only a gorgeous white hortensia, to replace the loss of the two which died of drought in my Californian absence. Plus a fancy fern, and two huge pots, one of which will await use [in the fietsenhok off the entrance hall] in the Autumn when the tricky job of potting on the wisteria and its companion, twining clematis will occur. The other pot was for the vine and my son, fortunately, grappled with its pot-bound steadfastness and eventually we transplanted it. I am coming to terms with my singular inability to deal with very large pots efficiently or even, inefficiently; quite a lot of strength is needed.

Then, Sunday afternoon, strolling in the sun to the Crowne Plaza hotel in the Burg, a friend and I heard a brass band and thus did I discover Open-air Lucht Concerten, performed by various youth brands, and the Navy, mainly in the Burg but also in the Markt and Koningin Astridpark, between April and September. I had always thought of brass bands as a chiefly British tradition, especially in the North of the UK and often associated with coal miners and pit villages. But from the marching bands from Holland and Belgium which perform once a year in Brugge, clearly there is a strong Nederlands' brass band tradition too. These concerts are free, part of a most generous cornucopia provided gratis every year, courtesy of the Stad.