Amsterdam and the Netherlands Fall 2018 - Part 1

After our long stay in Paris, we went briefly to Amsterdam, a city we haven't been to in a long time.   I was slightly wary, as Amsterdam has been in the news lately for being one of those places that is being overwhelmed by tourists, especially those who come to smoke pot, drink, and in general raise hell.   The truth is that like many overtouristed cities, the tourists tend to stay in their favored spots, and so once you venture out of those territories, Amsterdam is impossibly picturesque.  Because of the canals and very narrow streets, it is a city for bicyclists and pedestrians, and it's a pleasure to walk the back streets, which mostly haven't changed for hundreds of years.   In the central parts of the city, though, you enter into some strange hybrid international city, where you hear almost as much English as Dutch being spoken.   The smell of pot is everywhere, and signs are in English as much as Dutch, too.  And, of course, the international chain stores predominate in the main shopping areas.   But we both enjoyed wandering around.

Amsterdam by night:

Amsterdam does have its interesting shop windows, including the various pot shops, seen at night:

Vitamin Store  "every body happy"

These look like the smoke shops of New York

Another reason to visit Amsterdam is for its museums, and in particular the Rijksmuseum, which has been nicely renovated a while ago.   So we spent a long time with the Dutch paintings of the "Golden Age", the Rembrandts and Vermeers and the like.   And they are indeed extraordinary, and seeing them all together you realize what a special period that was in art history.   I do really like the smaller genre paintings, and have lately become totally obsessed with the works of Pieter de Hooch, whose luminous visions of color and light in domestic spaces are truly captivating.   He shares these qualities with Vermeer, his contemporary.   But in de Hooch's case, I often feel like the story told in the painting is secondary to his vision of light and depth in space.  In fact the subjects of the paintings are very simple; usually some kind of domestic scene.   And the Rembrandts in the Rijksmuseum are also extraordinary.  Though I must confess that upon seeing the famous "Night Watch", I couldn't help but notice that it's mostly about a bunch of guys with guns, marching forward on attack.

De Hooch:

Detail of above:

Detail of above:

I also like the incredibly detailed still life paintings, with flowers, fruits and lots of bugs:

Detail:

 

(I remember that my sister used to entertain her young daughters in art museums by having them look for cats in paintings; we copied that idea with Ada, looking for dogs.   Perhaps they could have counted bugs in this painting?   I was tempted myself.)

Detail of a shipwreck:

Here is a painting depicting the removal of Catholic items from the churches:

This was a very large canvas depicting Herod's slaughter of the first borns in very gory detail.  I added a bit...

Amsterdam is also home to the Stedjlik Museum, which focuses on 20th century and contemporary art.  Lately, it seems they are focusing on contemporary art more, with their 20th century art collection condensed and reinstalled in the basement.   I was a bit disappointed in the collection; I had anticipated more.

Malevich:

I was surprised to find out this was a late work by Kurt Schwitters:

Amsterdam does have some old churches, but with the change to Protestantism a lot of the decorations were removed.   The Oude Kerk is quite beautiful, though, and it was interesting to see after seeing the various paintings of this kind of church in the museums.

Besides its architecture from the Golden Age, Amsterdam does have some Art Nouveau styled architecture:

Amsterdam and the Netherlands Fall 2018 - Part 2

Amsterdam also has an amazing new film museum, called the Eyemuseum.   It's in a startling building, right on the harbor across from the train station.   In addition to showing films of all kinds, they have special exhibitions.

There was an exhibition of the works of the audio-visual artist Roji Ikeda, who makes very large-screen sound and visual installations, inspired by data arrays and interstellar research.  They were visually mesmerizing.  The music was electronic, lots of blips and thumping bass.  

Some still images:

After Vera went to Milan, I went to Rotterdam.   I had a reason for going to Rotterdam, which is normally not on anyone's list of travel destinations.   In the 1960's, when my family lived in Brussels, we would travel to the US every summer, and on our return, we would take the ocean liner SS Rotterdam to return to Europe.   This was time when it was still considered somewhat normal to take a ship across the ocean in order to get to Europe.   We did this three times on the SS Rotterdam.   Recently, I discovered that the ship still existed, and was in fact a hotel, docked in the harbor in Rotterdam.   I could not resist the idea of revisiting my past, and so I booked two nights on the ship.   And I did feel a wave of emotion when I saw the ship; it looked beautiful, and is much smaller than today's floating hotels.   The exterior was exactly the same, and although much of the interior had been redecorated since my time, it all felt very familiar.     I had a cabin with a porthole, much like the one we would have had back in the 60's.

The center of the city of Rotterdam was destroyed by German bombing in World War II, and the Dutch, rather than reconstruct the old city, decided to rebuild it in an entirely new, modern way.  Thus it has wide streets, open spaces, and in general looks like a newer American city, though with more emphasis on pedestrian spaces than on automobile spaces.   Its only redeeming feature these days is the impressive amount of adventurous modern architecture which has been built,  mostly recently.  I visited the "cube" houses, built by architect Piet Bloom in the 1980's.   These are apartments, each in the shape of a cube, but with the corners facing down.  Luckily there is an exhibit where you can go inside one of them.   Peculiar living spaces, to say the least.

You can get disoriented:

Inside:

There is a giant new market hall, which is built in a kind of U shape, with apartments all around it.

Inside, it has a painted ceiling:

The public library:

In the area:

"Dude Haven"

Rotterdam is a huge port city, and I took a boat tour around the harbor.   I confess that I find the docks, cranes, and piles of different colored ship containers to be visually intriguing, especially in the late afternoon light.   More pictures than you want...

This is the 1930's built ventilation tower for a tunnel under the river.

The SS Rotterdam from the water:

New skyscrapers on the water: