I AMsterdam

Thank you so much, Guus and Joan.  Until the next time!

On Monday we left Vaassen.  What a week.  Good and bad, up and down.  Bittersweet.  I'm getting up there in years.  Eventually I'm not gonna be able to flit around the world like this anymore.  Hopefully(?) I'll actually get a life.  Or something.  I don't know when I'll be back, and I'm not sure what parts of me I'm leaving behind.  But hey, that's a thoughtful post for another time...  Now I'll tell you about our day in Amsterdam.

 Monday was the second day of Pentacost.  The Dutch celebrate most of the religious holidays twice; two days of Christmas, two days of Easter, two days of Pentacost...  In America I don't think I've ever noticed Pentacost being celebrated at all, by anyone.  Here, everyone gets Monday, the second day of Pentacost, off of work!  Woohoo!  That was probably why there were two HUGE lines outside of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.  Also, the museum has been closed for renovations for ten years and just reopened in April.  That might have something to do with it.

this has to be my favorite way-finding map
EVER!  just one long piece of paper, folded
accordion-style with tabs for each floor.
simple and effective.  perfect, i say!

Usually, I hear "renovations" and I groan inside.  I tend to mourn the old and tolerate the new, but the Rijksmuseum's "renovation" didn't mean gutting the old building and putting up a lot of glass and steel and white walls.  They reorganized the artwork chronologically, but otherwise the place looks like itself, only spruced up!   Clean and fresh but just as history-steeped as ever.  I am very glad.  

I first dragged everyone to see the Nachtwacht:

It holds a prominent place at the head of the central "nave" of the second floor.  This very spot was the site of an epiphany I had at age 16.  I was a young and impressionable exchange student, visiting Amsterdam with not a clue about history or art or fashion, but when I saw this painting I was transfixed.  This was the moment when I understood how reality could trump digital; I understood why we care about ORIGINALS at all.  Nothing I had seen before had prepared me for the way the oils glowed and the colors shone and the mystery of the shadows beckoned...

I think I stood and stared at the painting from different angles for a good thirty minutes.  I can even remember tears coming to my eyes when I thought of the artist laboring to create a masterpiece I could enjoy centuries later.  It was like a bridge through time!!  

I swear I'm not exaggerating.  

And I'll have you know, no such thing happened when I saw the David or the Mona Lisa.

That's why I visited the place first, like a pilgrim to a shrine.  This painting was part of the making of me. 

***moment of silence***

Then I visited the museum like I usually visit museums.  I hustled along, eyes scanning the walls and flitting from object to object, until I found depictions of people in clothes.  I also looked for still lives, since I LOVE Dutch still lives; but we only had two hours and I wanted to get some dress history research in.  Joan trailed me, I think a bit bewildered by my unorthodox museum-visiting methods, and the boys went off to experience the museum in their own way, which included a lot of sitting on benches.  

I did find some interesting clothing stuff, including an assortment of ruffs, a clear detail of a Netherlandish kitchen wench's gown I've studied before (which actually appears to be a great deal of fantasy), the back of a directoire-era hairdo, and a medieval gown with clear shot of side-lacing.  Someday those images will come in handy.  (I just need to know where to put them in the meantime.)

The following is a brief tour of where my eye landed during two hours at the Rijksmuseum:

i feel like this little caterpillar, come to the edge of an
unknowable chasm, looking around and wondering
what comes next.

this medieval lady looks a bit like an alien,
with her bulbous hair, high plucked forehead
and exciting sleeve cuffs...

i love how ugly 17th century fashion was.
this man might be attractive, but only under
other sartorial circumstances.  what were
they thinking???  i blame the dutch.  the 17th
century was, after all, THEIR Golden Era.

yes.  this is exactly how i feel.

weird!  she's wearing her tucker OUTSIDE of
her gown!  how edgy!  how cool!  i'm gonna
have to try that!

Mamacita, my grandmother, once told me that she spent three DAYS exploring the art in the Rijksmuseum.  I don't know if I would be able to take that long, but two hours certainly wasn't enough.  I'd like the leisure time to explore it more.  Someday.  Someday.