abendgules | Entries tagged with belgium

Just for fun while we were in Bruges and Ghent, I started noting the different styles of rosaries that were shown in the late-period paintings. It gave me something to focus on while studying the rich and startlingly clear and crisp images of the 'Flemish Primitives', which is the collective description for those painters who worked around the same time as Van Eyck in the late mid-15th and early 16th centuries.

So here are my findings. All of the rosaries I noted were rounds (rather than straight strings).

Unfortunately no cameras, bags, jackets, etc etc were allowed into the Groeningmuseum, so I had to hunt up the images online afterward in Vlaamsekunstcollectie. My Flemish is crap, so bear with me (search is in English, descriptions are in Flemish).

ETA: sorry about the crap links. Use the advanced search from the link, and enter the inventory number to find the pieces I saw.

You can zoom on these images, but the enlargements aren't great - too low-res.

Master of the Holy Blood, active 1500-1520, inventory no 1991.GRO0008.I
Madonna with SS Barbara and Catherine (allows zooming, in popup window)

Rosary of coral beads on long cord, hanging from the knot of her blue sash, over a black gown.
Agnus Dei medallion at the bottom
6 decade beads visible, and they're filigree beads (look like 2 halves of a cast bead maybe?) about size of a fingernail

Jan Provoost, 1462-1529, inventory no. 0000.GRO0216.I-0218.I
Death and the Miser (2 two-part images) (a miser trying to give Death an IOU, very good, then the donor and his wife at prayer, with a bishop and St. Gudula watching over them)

Very long rosary of coral beads, about 8 decade beads of shiny gold, though possibly more, because the top of the rosary is hidden by the woman's gown. HUGE gold cross at the end, with pearls on pins in the ends and the corners of the cross, and in the corner of the arms of the cross.

Gerard David, active 1502-1508, inventory no. 0000.GRO0035.I-0039.I
Baptism of Christ (triptych)

This is a large triptych, with Christ being baptised in the middle, and the donor with his sons on the left side, and his wife and the daughters on the right side, both sides being watched over by handy saints.

The donor's wife has a rosary of large gray filigree or what I'd call a birdseye pattern if it were woven, separated by BIG gold filigree decade beads. At the bottom is a simple Latin cross, with 4 pearls in the joints.

The donor's daughter has a black bead rosary w/ a medallion at the end, and large faceted gold beads for decades.

On both, the pendant appears to be in the middle of a decade, with 5 'normal' beads on either side, which I thought was a bit unusual.

In the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent:

Anonymous Master, c. 1480-1490, S. Netherlands
Holy Trinity with Donors and Saints , inv. no. 1973-AE

The wife(?) of a donor has a rosary w/ the cross visible. You can see 6 beads between decade beads. Oddly, the cross is not centred between decades, but is next to one of them. There's also 1 additional pendant that looks like a rock w/in a gold base. You can see two other 'rounds' on one side of the rosary, suggestiong 6-7 rounds total for the whole piece.

One non-rosary related observation: a crown perched on top of a travelling hat.

Master of the Prelate Mur, c. 1450
Adoration of the Magi , inv. no. 1903-E

The magi have arrived to worship Christ, and one of the leading travellers has flung down his hat in his haste to get to his knees.
His hat is shaped a bit like a Robin Hood hat, but the crown is rounder, more cylindrical, and has a pointy nipple on top. And within the brim of the hat, you can see his crown.

I mention this because SCA royals and royal peers tend to wear crowns and coronets on top of other headwear, regardless of period practice. I particularly dislike the wearing of coronets on top of straw sunhats, as I think it's looks very silly.

Judging from portraits and illuminations, kings and queens did not always wear their crowns. But the SCA convention is that anyone entitled to a coronet will wear it, particularly if they're on the throne.

This is the first example I've found of a crown within anything other than a cap of maintenance-style head covering.

I don't know if this is a good example: the Magi are not typical folk, they're decidedly exotic, and obviously Not From Around Here. This may be an example of their Strange Foreign Ways - so outlandish, that they wear crowns over their hats. Or maybe it's to help identify them - like a big arrow indicating that these guys aren't just wise, they're royalty too.

But I thought it was nifty to see anyway.

Current Mood: creative

I'm gradually posting my holiday diary in excerpts, in date order (which means they're waaaaay back there in your Friends pages by now!) so here's a summary link post, that I'll keep up to date:
part I: University
part II: Antwerp and landing in Bruges
part III: first full day in Bruges - day of museums
part IIIa: seeing a Bosch in person
part IV: more museums, and the basilica of the Holy Blood

Current Mood: creative

18 November

Our first stop is the Civic Hall - not intending to visit, but sort of drawn in. It's been a civic centre since 14th c. but was renovated in 19th c. in the Gothic revival style so popular at that point. It is gloriously...camp, as in over the top: bands of painted ornaments layered on top of one another, topped off with 'scenes of Bruges' history, that are reminiscent of Osprey book artwork. It took decades to complete, not least because, in the fine bureaucratic tradition, so many committees required consultation on the design. The original artist in fact died waiting for planning permissions...

Apparently Bruges got swept up in the 19th century Gothic Revival just as much as England did - I'd previously thought it was an English phenomenon. Many medieval buildings were restored to their medieval ideal, at least according to 19th century views and tastes. Since Bruges has been carefully maintained to keep the medieval look and feel, it's sometimes hard to distinguish which buildings are originally medieval and which have been built in that style but much later.

We make a quick return to the Groeningmuseum, to sketch a bit more and see if we missed anything. Am sorely tempted by the bookshop, which Robert marches past without missing a beat. Sigh.

From Groeningmuseum we move to the Gruuthuse, which is the former home of a wealthy burgher family. They seem to have taken their name from their house - the house where 'gruut', the herbs flavouring needed for beer, was mixed and doled out. Being basically in control of beer production in Bruges made the family wealthy early on in Flemish urban history.

The Gruuthuse is now a museum (no surprise), but is currently occupied by a temporary exhibit while they're being refurbished. Most of the temp displays were highlighting the stuff you can see in other related Bruges museums. There are some very handsome tapestries, with one in near-mint condition, very rich and with strong yellow-green colours.

The hall itself is handsome, with an arched roof, painted, all the joints of the arches decorated with musicians, carved and painted.

One amazing feature of the Gruuthuse is the private chapel. One of the best-known sons of the family is Louis de Bruges, lord of Gruuthuse - he was named Earl of Winchester, in thanks for housing Edward IV in exile during the wars of the roses. Louis was devout, and arranged to have his own chapel extended from the upper floor of his house into the cathedral of Our Lady next door: his chapel is actually attached to the cathedral and the windows overlook the altar. You can kneel on the bench, and get an excellent view of the centre of the cathedral. A small door connects the cathedral up some stairs to the chapel. So he didn't have to get out of his dressing gown and slippers to attend Mass.

We did visit the cathedral as well - currently covered with scaffolding. The front half of the church is designated a museum, housing some recently-found 13th c. graves, and the tombs of Mary of Burgundy and her father, Charles the Bold (sometimes called Charles the Rash). The older graves are directly under the altar, and the interiors of the stone coffins were painted with angels, crosses, Mother Mary, presumeably to comfort the dead.

A few fragments of Mary's 'liturgical garments' are framed on the wall: fragments of a pall, practically crumbling, and a belt with a buckle.

In the side chapels there are patches of original paint exposed on the walls; columns and reliefs show that at least a bit of test cleaning & restoration has been tried. I think you'd freeze trying to work in the chapel in winter - perhaps it's summer work only? The damp indoors would really sink into your bones. The beautiful diapered patterns and vermilion columns show you how gaudily brililant the churches must once have been.

Next to the Civic Hall is the Basilica of the Holy Blood, which houses as its main relic a vial of the holy blood, brought back from the holy lands by pilgrims (read: crusaders) in the 12th century. It too is a riot of Gothic Revival decor: it's as if someone flipped through the Dover book of medieval border decorations, couldn't make up their minds, and decided to use all of them on the walls.

We visited both the downstairs crypt, carefully preserved in 12th c Romanesque style (heavy, with huge pillars and thick walls) and the upper chapel, where a recording tells you in 3 languages that you are permitted to venerate the holy blood in a respectful fashion, between set hours. And indeed, there was a priest set up on a dais, where you could walk up the stairs, kiss the vial and say a prayer.

I found this a bit weirding-out-ish: I didn't realise anyone still venerated relics, seriously, in this day and age. But then, people believe in healing crystals and homeopathy, so I guess a vial of blood from the middle east is no more or less magical.

It was in the tiny basilica museum, on a five-minute visit, that Robert found a real gem: the noble Brotherhood of the Holy Blood, a brotherhood comitted to keeping the holy blood safe in Bruges. Their emblem is, you guessed it, a pelican in its piety: a huge one is carved above the main entrance, with a rather frazzled Pelican feeding at least 7 chicks.

Even better though - they have a small 'Parurebook' to record the style of the livery of the brotherhood. The earliest 15th c versions are essentially longish houppelandes in dark colours, with a honking big Pelican on one shoulder, and a cascade of blood droplets falling across the body along a sash (see the illustration on the Brotherhood's webpage!).

So: an authentic historic noble order, dedicated to (at least some) good works, with its emblem a Pelican: how cool is that? Robert was pretty pleased.

From Bruges, we took the train onward to Ghent, less than 2 hours away.

Current Mood: cheerful

I forgot to add this item to my report about the Memling in SintJans Museum:

I saw my first Bosch painting in person. It's a triptych, on loan to the Memling in St Jans while something else of theirs is on tour.

It's a scene of the rapture, or of the end times when the holy head for heaven (one side of the triptych) while the lost are eaten, tortured, tormented and generally turned into sadistic playthings.

Bosch always looks modern to me, the way the giant bugs/creatures swallow tiny humans. I wonder if he believed in the hereafter, or if he was simply putting the scariest spin he could on the Bible's stories about heaven and hell. While we tend to think ' he's got to be mad' now, I wonder if he was judged unstable by his contemporaries, or if he was admired?

His macabre visions were serious at the time, compared to the silly take on them (picture a giant foot stomping someone a la Monty Python). Python sees fun and silliness where Bosch seens horror and desperation.

Wikipedia says he was member of a very conservative brotherhood, so he may have been reflecting a fairly demanding and judgemental view of the world that promised a fairly miserable afterlife to the vast majority of humans.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Days in Bruges

Waking up in Bruges, we find that a cold breakfast is laid out for us as self-serve, in the kitchenette on the same floor as our room: cereal, rolls, bread for toasting, cold cuts, cheese, yoghurt, orange juice, tea and coffee. It's a far more complete 'Continental breakfast' than I'm used to, and it's delightful.

The decor is very spare and lean: muted colours, clean lines, simple geometric patterns, a bit like upscale IKEA. In fact, it's almost exactly the same colour and style scheme as the 'brasserie' we ate at the night before, down to the very plain white china pattern and the pale green serviettes.

Perhaps after living with the detailed medieval and florid baroque exteriors, going with crisp and spotless 'Scandinavian' interiors provides a rest for the eyes and the brain.

The B&B owner, Lut, offers to drop our bags at the B&B of a friend (Lut can't offer us 2 nights); friend proves to be outside the centre of the tourist area, but is still walking distance, and is considerably cheaper. Hurrah for well-connected professional hosts.

We head out around 10-ish to see the archeological museum. The main museums in Bruges have joint 3-day tickets for 15 Euro: a great deal. The archeo museum turns out to be very kid-oriented, taking you through the history of the site: from Bronze Age to post-medieval, the region's history is driven by natural access to the sea - for some periods, there is no direct seaside access inland, and evidence of occupation disappears for a century or so. And when the port and the canals begin to silt up in the late middle ages, Bruges' importance wanes as merchants and shippers move elsewhere.

Some splendid moments in the museum are provided by the video of Bronze Age reenactors making axes: one by knapping a flint axehead, one by casting a bronze one, and then sharpening them respectively.

The museum cleverly associates period and modern artifacts by mixing them: putting modern pitchers, cups, plates next to period examples (often in similar styles) and putting period shoes and purses in modern shoeboxes in the display. The displays also provide a lot of information without text - you're handed a laminated guide to the museum in the language of your choice, but a lot is conveyed well with visual association instead.

In addition to trading, medieval Bruges was driven by three industries, all fitted within the old city: dyeing, tanning and clay (bricks, tiles and pottery). I dread to think how the city smelled on warm days, with all these stinky, messy water-intensive industries all in close proximity.
An excellent display of madder, dyers weed(?) and woad connected the dye plants directly to the Belgian flag (red, yellow, blue) - very effective.

On to the next museum: Memling in Sint. Jan, which refers to the 16th/17th c artist, Memling, working for St Jaanshospital. The museum is housed in the original hospital building - built to house sick pilgrims, travellers and poor - though the main focus of the care was spiritual, making sure you were prepared to meet your maker while you were, uh, travelling to hopefully meet your maker, so to speak. Lepers and other contagious folk and pregnant women need not apply!

The beds and bedding were endowments by rich patrons in perpetuity (bit like having an academic chair or a hospital ward named after you). Patrons names and images would hang by the bed, and occupants were encouraged to pray for their benefactors. The hospital was active until the 19th century, and the Benedictine nuns working there wore the traditional gown and veil (very 15th c. prosperous modest burgher look) until Vatican II in 1966. The Benedictines still live next door in the Beginhof.

One fabulous display was of the restored medieval coffer of St. Ursula and her 11,000 virgins. Anything pre-Eyck (ie. pre-1400) is fairly rare here: Bruges was constantly rebuilt and refurbished, including artworks.

This coffer had been repainted several times, and recently was restored to its original red and vermilion colours - working down through 12 layers of paint to the original bottom four layers! A very splendid example of a delicate and thorough restoration.

Afternoon museum: Groeningmuseum, which is The Big One in Bruges, and houses the 'Dutch Primitives'- Van Eyck and his late 14th to late 15th c. contemporaries. (One Van Eyck that is in London is 'Marriage of Arnolfini', of a dour couple in a wealthy-looking bedroom, and the woman looks very pregnant).

Most of the paintings are religious topics, and they're incredibly richly detailed and brilliantly coloured, working in the newfangled oil paints (instead of egg tempera), with powerful 3D effects. For worshippers, they must have been incredibly lifelike, almost ready to jump off the walls and run around the churches with them.

(One that is in London is Van Eyck's marriage of Arnolfini, of a couple in a wealthy-looking bedroom, and the woman looks very pregnant).
Unfortunately, big sections of the exhibits are closed: the museum is suffering from an infestation of woodworm, which is a pretty serious matter when so much of your art is painted on wood panels! so the earliest pieces that we were looking forward to were offlimits. Sigh.

Since photos are firmly verboten, we took sketches instead of whatever took our fancy: belt fittings, jewelry, rosaries (for xrian ), necklines, headdresses. It felt very grown-up and mature to be sketching in a gallery! I'd love to do a full-on 15th c European gown like some of the ones I saw - presumeably after I perfect all the other clothing styles that interest me - it could be very lush and rich!

Our last stop that day was to the 'American coffee shop', run by an expat American who is trying to introduce a 'coffee shop' to Bruges. She's clearly starved for intelligent conversation, and was happy to tell us her life story in about half an hour as she packed up.

Dinner that evening: frites and carbonnade (Flemish beef stew) from the chippie in Van Eyck square.

Current Mood: pleased

Mon 16 Nov: lie in, as much as one can when staying at the home of two active children. Midmorning we set off to Bruges, with a stop in Antwerp to see the cathedral.
Somehow, having grown very accustomed to English Reformation history, I had not realised that Antwerp, and indeed much of Belgium, remained Catholic. It may have experienced the Reformation as much of Europe did, but also got a solid dose of Counter-reformation afterward.
So much of the architecture and artwork we saw in Antwerp and in Bruges was firmly Catholic, even though most of my brain now associates 'cathedral' with 'Church of England'.
In the Antwerp Cathedral, we were fortunate enough to catch the second half of an English tour of the building, and specifically the artwork of Reubens. I hadn't realised he was one of the banner-wavers of the early 17th century, and of the Counter-reformation.
Our guide was terrific at explaining how Reubens fits into the development of post-period art: what makes him different from his predecessors, and distinctive in the art world. He had a firm grasp of the history of the cathedral itself, even of its time spent as a stable for Napoleonic forces' horses.
He showed us the earliest stained glass in the cathedral: a huge side piece, dedicated to Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and to the Duke and Mary of Burgundy, from the English wool merchants working in Antwerp, to commemmorate their rulers setting up a trade agreement between England and Burgundy, that made the merchants rich and suitably grateful. The 'English chapel' area was still painted with crossbows and other symbols for St. Sebastian, their patron saint.
I always treasure people who are passionate about what they know, and have a gift for explaining its subtleties: even watching sports is more entertaining when you know what skills and strategies to look for. This guide was clearly a Reubens devotee, describing him as 'avant-garde' for his time, and he highlighted the pieces' strengths (the dynamic movement in his images, the figures gazing outward drawing viewers in, Reubens circumventing counter-reformation strictures on depictions of Christ).
He wrapped up by saying, 'Every time I come here, I still find something new in this painting.' If only every art collection could have such a committed interpreter!