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The hague, Day 3: Tessellating The Hague
Sep. 25th, 2022 08:41 pmTHE HAGUE, Day 3: Tessellating the City
Today I planned to hang out with Chris & go visit an Escher Museum. We were a bit slow getting off in the morning, but eventually headed out a bit after 9 to do exactly that. Remarkably, the streets were still fairly empty. Holland doesn't seem to get up and out on weekends until the afternoon, from what I can see!
We took one of the local trams out to the Binnenhof ("courtyard"!), which is a political center in The Hague where the Dutch states meet. It's apparently renovated from an old castle, and so unsurprisingly it reminded me of the Castle in Prague. Its most remarkable feature is a big lake out front, apparently called the Hofvijver ("courtpond"!). It's a beautiful backdrop (frontdrop?) for the Binnenhof, and apparently once connected to a moat that went all the way around the castle.
The Escher museum was just a bit past the Binnenhof in the Palace of the Lange Voorhout, which sounds like it housed a large rodent, but was actually the home of the Queen Mother for many years. (It was named for the street.) And now it's the home of Escher.
Seeing the Escher museum reminded me of Chris & I seeing the Gaudi Park in Barcelona and seeing a (small) Mucha Museum in Prague. It was a similar focus on a local artist, or in the case of Escher, a graphic designer based on how he labeled himself.
Much like the two museums yesterday, the Escher Museum did a great job of charting history. It starts with Escher's work as a landscape artist primarily depicting Italy. They're beautiful ink drawings, but far from what he'd later do. Much of the later work originated with a second visit to Alhambra, which got him designing tessellations, which are probably what he's best known for. Personally, I found some of his even later work even more notable, as he transformed his tessellations into the three dimensions (all depicted in two of course). It was pretty amazing how he evolved as an artist across his entire long life.
One of the most striking things in Escher's story was that his mentor and his mentor's whole family were presumed to be murdered by the Nazis in a concentration camp. (Shockingly, even today the Wikipedia entry for that mentor, Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, just says _presumed_: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Jessurun_de_Mesquita). He was touched by WWII a few times.
Escher apparently knew how important his work was by the end of his life, as in 1968 he was able to put on a solo show in Gemeentemuseum, one of the major Dutch museums. He passed in 1972.
After two floors of Escher prints, the Palais had a floor of more interactive exhibits, which was pretty cool. Mirrors and globes showed some of Escher's weird techniques in real-life, while there were also illusions printed on the walls. A fine ending. Overall, a great little single-artist museum.
For lunch, Chris and I returned to the Hofvijver, because the front is now a little park with lots of food vendors. We had okonomiyaki, a savory Japanese pancake that was vegetarian. The cool part was that we got to see them make them which was more than a dozen steps as they added different ingredients one by one. Quite tasty, and more filling than I would have guessed.
Afterward we saw the other museum for the day, the Mauritshuis, which is mainly a Dutch Golden Age art museum (which means that it focused on what was just half of a floor of the Rijtsmuseum). It was an interesting place, though I was sad that it didn't have the historical context of all the other museums.
The Vermeer paintings were clearly the stars. Girl with a Pearl Earring is there, as is one I'd never heard of before called View of Delft, a bright cityscape that is so new-looking that it could have been painted yesterday. I quite enjoyed them. Rembrandt is clearly the other big draw. I'd already seen his "Night Watch" at the Rijtsmuseum yesterday and saw "The Anatomy Lesson" at the Mauritshuis today (as well as a few smaller pieces). I find it a little harder to understand why Rembrandt is such a big deal in the modern day, though I did enjoy how well he depicted the _people_ of the Golden Age. I figured his greater fame must have been because he was out in advance of the work at the time and Wikipedia agrees, saying that it's because of his use of light and shadow (a common refrain in Dutch Golden Age painters) and because of his more dramatic poses and suggestions of movement. I can see that and will look if I see more Rembrandt
But I think four museums later, I'd done with them for this trip. But it was a wonderful walk through Dutch art history.
Tomorrow I'd hoped to bike around a bit, but the weather forecast is suggesting considerable rain on my final two free days here (so for tomorrow I may instead sit in on the talks RWOT is giving to the local school, mainly depending on whether I feel comfortable exposing myself to a bunch of students. We'll see how tomorrow looks!).
When I went to grab dinner out, it actually felt COLD out, after a pleasant gray chill most of the trip. Winter is coming.
Today I planned to hang out with Chris & go visit an Escher Museum. We were a bit slow getting off in the morning, but eventually headed out a bit after 9 to do exactly that. Remarkably, the streets were still fairly empty. Holland doesn't seem to get up and out on weekends until the afternoon, from what I can see!
We took one of the local trams out to the Binnenhof ("courtyard"!), which is a political center in The Hague where the Dutch states meet. It's apparently renovated from an old castle, and so unsurprisingly it reminded me of the Castle in Prague. Its most remarkable feature is a big lake out front, apparently called the Hofvijver ("courtpond"!). It's a beautiful backdrop (frontdrop?) for the Binnenhof, and apparently once connected to a moat that went all the way around the castle.
The Escher museum was just a bit past the Binnenhof in the Palace of the Lange Voorhout, which sounds like it housed a large rodent, but was actually the home of the Queen Mother for many years. (It was named for the street.) And now it's the home of Escher.
Seeing the Escher museum reminded me of Chris & I seeing the Gaudi Park in Barcelona and seeing a (small) Mucha Museum in Prague. It was a similar focus on a local artist, or in the case of Escher, a graphic designer based on how he labeled himself.
Much like the two museums yesterday, the Escher Museum did a great job of charting history. It starts with Escher's work as a landscape artist primarily depicting Italy. They're beautiful ink drawings, but far from what he'd later do. Much of the later work originated with a second visit to Alhambra, which got him designing tessellations, which are probably what he's best known for. Personally, I found some of his even later work even more notable, as he transformed his tessellations into the three dimensions (all depicted in two of course). It was pretty amazing how he evolved as an artist across his entire long life.
One of the most striking things in Escher's story was that his mentor and his mentor's whole family were presumed to be murdered by the Nazis in a concentration camp. (Shockingly, even today the Wikipedia entry for that mentor, Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, just says _presumed_: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Jessurun_de_Mesquita). He was touched by WWII a few times.
Escher apparently knew how important his work was by the end of his life, as in 1968 he was able to put on a solo show in Gemeentemuseum, one of the major Dutch museums. He passed in 1972.
After two floors of Escher prints, the Palais had a floor of more interactive exhibits, which was pretty cool. Mirrors and globes showed some of Escher's weird techniques in real-life, while there were also illusions printed on the walls. A fine ending. Overall, a great little single-artist museum.
For lunch, Chris and I returned to the Hofvijver, because the front is now a little park with lots of food vendors. We had okonomiyaki, a savory Japanese pancake that was vegetarian. The cool part was that we got to see them make them which was more than a dozen steps as they added different ingredients one by one. Quite tasty, and more filling than I would have guessed.
Afterward we saw the other museum for the day, the Mauritshuis, which is mainly a Dutch Golden Age art museum (which means that it focused on what was just half of a floor of the Rijtsmuseum). It was an interesting place, though I was sad that it didn't have the historical context of all the other museums.
The Vermeer paintings were clearly the stars. Girl with a Pearl Earring is there, as is one I'd never heard of before called View of Delft, a bright cityscape that is so new-looking that it could have been painted yesterday. I quite enjoyed them. Rembrandt is clearly the other big draw. I'd already seen his "Night Watch" at the Rijtsmuseum yesterday and saw "The Anatomy Lesson" at the Mauritshuis today (as well as a few smaller pieces). I find it a little harder to understand why Rembrandt is such a big deal in the modern day, though I did enjoy how well he depicted the _people_ of the Golden Age. I figured his greater fame must have been because he was out in advance of the work at the time and Wikipedia agrees, saying that it's because of his use of light and shadow (a common refrain in Dutch Golden Age painters) and because of his more dramatic poses and suggestions of movement. I can see that and will look if I see more Rembrandt
But I think four museums later, I'd done with them for this trip. But it was a wonderful walk through Dutch art history.
Tomorrow I'd hoped to bike around a bit, but the weather forecast is suggesting considerable rain on my final two free days here (so for tomorrow I may instead sit in on the talks RWOT is giving to the local school, mainly depending on whether I feel comfortable exposing myself to a bunch of students. We'll see how tomorrow looks!).
When I went to grab dinner out, it actually felt COLD out, after a pleasant gray chill most of the trip. Winter is coming.