It rained quite
a lot in the night, and the day dawned, as Dutch days seem to, cold, grey and
damp. However, we didn’t complain, and congratulated ourselves we are not “enjoying”
the current 100 degree heatwave in Rome. After various chores, we headed off
for the North Brabant Museum, which we found without great difficulty. Very few
people in the street at this time – we realize the Dutch do not rise on Sundays
much before 11 a.m.
The museum
garden featured some unusual sculptures:
The museum
had an interesting range of stuff, from some rather uninspiring (in my view) 19th
century landscapes by the brother and sister Knip, through more modern stuff,
including some very modern, which did not set the spirit leaping, to a small
room with some early Van Goghs, painted when he was living in Brabant. They were certainly interesting, especially one self-portrait, and
the head of an unnamed woman.
There was a
rendering of one of the old, underground, Den Bosche canals:
And a model
of the city, reminiscent of the model of ancient Rome at the Museum of Rome in
EUR:
In a
related sister museum devoted to ceramics and jewellery, we came across this
Picasso wine jug:
There were
also pieces by Jean Cocteau, Man Ray and Max Ernst, among others. A small
collection, but extremely interesting.
We lunched
at a café/bar rather than a restaurant: it seems that the Dutch don’t really do
lunch, and restaurants only open in the evening. However a selection of snacks
and a decent bottle of wine went down very well. Then it was on with the
cultural tour, past the north façade of the Cathedral which we missed yesterday
…
… to the
Hieronymous Bosch Arts Centre, in an old church. This was an extremely
interesting visit, starting with the usual video intro, which concluded just in
time for us to enjoy the much restored astronomical clock marking the hour:
First of
all we had a procession of the three magi doing their usual stuff, then
trumpets announced the last judgement, and we saw a stream of bodies rising
from their graves – it seemed to be mostly men disappearing into hell, and while almost all those going to heaven were women. There was one man going to heaven, but when I mentioned the gender
imbalance to a Dutch lady sitting next to me, she commented that he was
probably gay. I made no comment.
Next we took the lift to the top of the tower, from which we had spectacular
views of the city, including this one of the cathedral from the east:
As you
descend the tower by a rather precipitous spiral staircase they have a series
of excellent reproductions of virtually all Bosch's paintings, with credits to the major
galleries around the world where the originals are displayed, and a goodish
English-language commentary (sometimes a bit long-winded and didactic). Here
are some models made from the paintings:
And also devils
doing what devils do:
On our way
back to the boat, sated by all this culture, we passed through the market
square, now filled with hundreds of people scurrying this way and that in the
sunshine – the shops being almost all open and doing good business. We managed
to find a free table at one of the many cafes and bars ringing the square, and
paused for vital refreshment.
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