Amsterdam, Holland
June 4, 2023
The Prinsengracht teemed with people and bustled with bikes. The sun shone, sidewalks filled, and salvos of cycles dodged our distracted steps.
We sought shelter from the wheeled fusillade at a canal-side café. On the Brouwergracht we found our foxhole. Overlooking the water was a table for four.
A waiter told us it was already reserved. Deflated but not defeated, we decided to request the spot when we return in two weeks.
When I went inside, the hostess took pity on four dejected foreigners, and gave us the table that very moment. We quickly claimed the seats, and savored the scene at De Belhamel restaurant.
Enchanted by exquisite cuisine and wonderful weather, we watched half of Holland walk, ride, or float by.
This is a charming city in a delightful country that is, like most places on the planet, blessed and burdened with an equivocal past.
The Dutch inherited modern Holland from the ancient Franks. Ten feet below the North Sea, by a dam on the river Amstel, they raised a city precariously protected from the tempestuous tide.
Surrounded today by the Red Light District, the Oude Kirk is an island of solace in a sea of sin. It originally rose six years after the small settlement was granted city status. Within four decades it became a place of pilgrimage.
The village subsisted on the fickle sea it tried tirelessly to subdue. Fishing was so vital that many Dutchmen acknowledged they’d “built upon herrings” the proud city of Amsterdam. But it would take more than fish to keep it afloat.
In 1535, religious upheaval roiled Amsterdam. In May of that year, a pack of crazed Anabaptists stormed city hall. After they were dislodged in a riot of vengeance, Emperor Charles V imported the Inquisition to prevent further uprisings.
Next came the Calvinists. Being a mercantile capital, Amsterdam was willing to welcome this stern creed that was amenable to commerce.
Within twenty years of the Emperor’s death, the Dutch would revolt from rule by the Spanish realm. After liberation the Netherlands divided…the southern section remaining with Spain, the northern provinces forming a republic.
As it quickened with the pulse of sixteenth century trade, commerce flowed from, to, and thru Amsterdam. With ebbs and flows, it’s done so since.
Division of labor is indispensable to modern civilization. One man digs, another plants. Others mine, reap, manufacture, and market. Before you know it, millions of unseen specialists have built a pencil.
But it’s useless if it can’t get to market. After the fall of Constantinople pushed trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, it was often the Dutch who connected distant and disparate dots. In the three decades after 1665, their ships carried three quarters of all European maritime commerce.
Speculation thickened when money loosened. As Amsterdam merchants wove webs of commerce around the world, new fortunes facilitated luxuries at home.
Among them was the tulip, ostensibly introduced to Europe by an imperial ambassador to Suleiman the Magnificent. When these bountiful bulbs came to Amsterdam in the 1590s, their popularity increased and demand rose.
By the 1630s, speculators entered the fray. Prices soared in the forward market. Contracts exchanged hands multiple times, whereas few bulbs ever did. After a couple years, buyers began to pull their bids. Auctions fell silent, prices collapsed, and the bubble burst.
But the flowers remain, and are still beautiful. Unfortunately, we are too late for their annual peak. April is apparently the best time for tulip blossoms, tho’ many still grace the gardens in this city.
A couple hundred canals crossed by 1,200 bridges allow Amsterdam to more believably boast what Pittsburgh falsely claims…that it features more spans than any city in the world. We don’t know, but imagine Venice could make a case.
Spinoza considered Amsterdam the most civilized city on the continent. Descartes loved it, and fled the bustle of Paris for the serenity of its canals. Sitting or strolling leisurely along them, we can understand why.
Aesthetically, we’re here at a good time. The weather is clear, cool, and beautiful. The city is busy, but not overcrowded. And flowers enliven abundant gardens with their seductive blooms.
With the Dutch emphasis on industry, it’s no surprise their architecture seems more commercial than ecclesiastical. Even Medieval Catholics raised few memorable Netherland churches.
Not that there’s no architectural charm. With their delightful array of gabled façades, domestic structures line the canals, evoking simple elegance and restrained form.
Civic buildings offer more ornament. Hendrik de Keyser became city architect at age 29. At the turn of the 17th century, he designed in Dutch Renaissance style the Westerkerk, the Exchange, and the East India House.
Overseas trade and the revolt from Spain inspired and financed an enthusiastic proliferation of 17th century Dutch painting. Catalogues list 15,000 products from this fertile period.
Without ecclesiastical or aristocratic patronage, the art turned inward to the hearth and outward to the fields. Realism flourished. From domestic walls hung portraits of the inhabitants, or of still lifes depicting common things that sustained their lives.
Unlike in the Catholic countries further south, saints were scarce in Dutch art. And in this cool climate of hearty Rubenesque forms, nudity was rarely depicted or desired on canvases filled with more familiar scenes.
Many of them hung in small frames from domestic walls, filling common homes with pleasant sketches or painted genre.
Notable works have since been gathered in grander rooms. The Netherlands apparently has the highest concentration of museums in the world, and this city hosts some of its greatest collections.
One was preserved by the heroic foresight of local patriots. After the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, the Dutch quickly evacuated the best Rembrandts from the Rijksmuseum. Because of their efforts preserving these treasures, we were able to see many of them today.
Having made a reservation months ago, we arrived this morning at our allotted time.
Pierre Cuypers infused the exterior design of the Rijksmuseum with the same Gothic Renaissance influences that adorn his Centraal Station across town. Both are striking, and there’s no denying his paternity of either.
At the Rijksmuseum, there’s a Vermeer exhibit that sold out as soon as it opened. I wasn’t among those with the foresight to get tickets.
So as consolation, we met with Rembrandt, who lived in Amsterdam the last four decades of his life.
The greatest of Dutch artists used a mirror to hone his craft. He left more self portraits than many masters produced paintings. His parents were familiar themes, as were Old Testament stories.
Sometimes he combined the two, as in the moving portrait of his Mennonite mother poring over a Bible.
The main attraction of the Rembrandt gallery is the “Night Watch”, depicting the civil guard that protected Amsterdam.
Unfortunately, restoration blocked the lower portion of the painting. In our era abounding in emotional hypochondria, we only hope they don’t add or remove too much.
Apparently, some critics complain the masterpiece is “racist” because every person portrayed (in a major city with fewer than ten black people when Rembrandt worked) is white.
Having made a cursory pass thru a small portion of this large museum, we decided to take a chance accessing a more exclusive area.
Jan Vermeer follows only Rembrandt and Hals in the annals of Dutch painting. And he is unrivaled in the realm of “genre”.
A few days before we left the states, when I realized this exhibit was sold out, the First Lady informed me it was the attraction on this trip she most wanted to see.
Of 38 Vermeer works in collections around the world, 27 are in the Rijksmuseum till tomorrow. If my wife were to see them, it had to be today.
But how?
Like a mindless cat to a loose thread, I’m perfectly capable of pulling some strings. I did so in the manner natural to men of my high status and exulted station.
I asked a friend, who told me to wait in line and hope for the best.
While my wife and sons wandered among the Rembrandts, I joined a queue that had formed at the museum ticket window. Apparently, they occasionally release a few tickets, and would do so again later in the morning.
I arrived an hour early, with a couple dozen hopefuls already ahead of me. A little while later, my wife took my place, allowing me almost thirty minutes to wander among the Rembrandts.
When I returned, the line began to move. When we reached the front, we were relieved to know we weren’t too late.
From the desk came four coveted wristbands. We put them on and walked away before museum authorities could change their minds.
The exhibit was extensive, and wonderful. For a couple hours we wandered a well-arranged array of intimate portraits, interior scenes, and intricate themes.
Many included charming depictions of lovely women. Well-done as they were, they paled beside the smiling face of the one I was with.
JD
This is an awesome synopsis! Love that it worked out .
From a friend.