A Tale of Two Cities: Berlin and Vienna

While in Amsterdam, I took a day trip to the Hague, probably best known as being the seat of the Dutch government (although not the capital-that’s Amsterdam), and the location of both the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court.

While there, I visited two art museums: the Prince William V Gallery and the Escher Museum. The Prince William V Gallery was originally a group of paintings from William V, Prince of Orange-Nassau’s collection of paintings he regularly opened to the public. Now, the gallery hosts a few 18^th century paintings from the Mauritshuis, The Hague’s larger art museum. I enjoyed seeing some more work by Dutch painters there, but the highlight (and the main reason I went to the gallery in the first place) was seeing Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johannes_Vermeer_(1632-1675)_-_The_Girl_With_The_Pearl_Earring_(1665).jpg

Since the Mauritshaus, where the painting usually is, is under construction, it was at the Prince William Gallery for a few weeks. It’s one of my favorite paintings, so seeing it in person was really cool.

The Escher Museum, located in a former palace that was used as a winter palace by Queen Emma, holds an exhibition with a large number of works by Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, as well as some information about the palace and Queen Emma. The two exhibits were an interesting combination of information. It was especially neat to see how Escher’s work progressed over time. I was much more familiar with his later work, focused on tessellations and optical illusions, so it was interesting to see the Italian landscapes that dominated his earlier work. Here’s the museum and a few of his more famous pieces:

They also had a kids’ focused part of the museum where you could pretend to be in an Escher painting. So here are two versions of Hand with Reflecting Sphere:

The rest of the day, I mostly wandered through town, seeing the major sites including the Binnenhof, where most of the Dutch government buildings are located:

the Noordeinde Palace, Queen Beatrix’s working palace:

the Peace Palace which among other things is the headquarters of the International Court of Law:

The peace flame in the second photo is actually surrounded by stones, each of which is native to and represents a country.

I also headed to Scheveningen, the part of The Hague that borders the North Sea. It was cold, windy, and sprinkling the day I was there, so there were understandably very few people at the beach.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, this sculpture is part of the Beelden aan Zee sculpture museum and was created by Polish artist Igor Mitoraj (whose work will coincidentally appear again on this blog in a couple posts).

Overall, I had a really nice day trip. Although The Hague isn’t that much smaller than Amsterdam, it felt less urban somehow, although the lack of people certainly could be attributed to the weather and the fact that Easter was in a few days. Anyway, after spending almost all of my time this semester in some of Europe’s largest cities, it was nice to be in a place that was less crowded with people.

I spent the first part of my vacation in Amsterdam. Although also having a notoriously crazy night life and lax laws, from my experiences I found Amsterdam to be a beautiful city with pretty canals, more people on bikes than I’ve ever seen before (The biggest adjustment upon arriving was watching out for bikes. Crossing bike lanes in Amsterdam is more dangerous than crossing streets with cars), and some great art museums.

The canal system (mainly formed of four half circle canals) is truly impressive from an urban planning standpoint. To be honest, the very existence the Netherlands is impressive in terms of a landscape planning perspective. I don’t think there’s another country that can even come close to the Dutch in terms of removing water from the land. Case in point: Schipol, Amsterdam’s main airport, is located at the bottom of a former lake at 11 feet below sea level which was emptied to build the airport. Anyway, in addition to being a practical necessity, I found the canals to be wonderfully charming.

While there, I of course visited Anne Frank’s House.

Although I thought the house was overpriced, it was powerful to see the actual space where Anne lived with her family during the war. While I knew the Secret Annex was a small space, I didn’t really comprehend how small it was until my visit. I can’t imagine living in such confined quarters, unable to leave, for so many years.

I also had the time to visit both of Amsterdam’s major art museums: the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museums. Although most of the museum was closed for renovations, a smaller collection of paintings from the Netherlands’ Golden Age, the 17^th century is on display.

This collection included an extravagant collection of Delft pottery:

a few of Jan Vermeer’s works, which I particularly liked:

and several of Rembrandt’s works, including his masterpiece The Nightwatch:

Although it may be an unpopular opinion, I was quite underwhelmed and unimpressed by Rembrandt. I realized at the museum that although I knew Rembrandt was a famous Dutch painter, I hadn't seen any of his works. After seeing a few, while they are certainly technically advanced, his type of realism really just isn't my preferred artistic style.

On the other hand, the Van Gogh Museum was definitely my style. Vincent Van Gogh is one of my favorite painters, so seeing a museum full of his works was wonderful. It was also cool to see the development of his style and development over time, since the exhibit was organized chronologically. Photography isn't allowed in the museum, but some of my favorite paintings at the museum were Sunflowers:

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vincent_Willem_van_Gogh_127.jpg

and Wheatfield with Crows:

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_Vincent_Van_Gogh.jpg

I also took a free walking tour in Amsterdam which covered most of Amsterdam’s major sites such as the National Monument, a World War II monument in Amsterdam’s main square:

the building where the Dutch East India Company’s headquarters were:

and the Royal Palace. Originally Amsterdam’s city hall, it became the royal palace when Napoleon crowned his brother Louis king of the Netherlands and is currently one of the palaces of the Dutch royal family. Funny story from the tour: Upon arriving in Amsterdam, King Louis gave a speech to the people in which he spoke the Dutch language. However, his Dutch wasn’t very good so apparently he said he was the Konijn of Holland (which means rabbit) as opposed to saying he was the Koning of Holland (which means king). From that point on, he was nicknamed the rabbit king. Anyway, here’s the palace:

I also stopped by the flower market. I don’t know if it was actually tulip season while I was there, but the flower market was full of tulip bulbs and tulip flowers being sold.