Monday, October 14, 2024

Blogtober Fourteen: Visiting a Museum

 

A little armchair travel this evening. During our stay in Leiden, we visited the Young Rembrandt Studio. Rembrandt was born in Leiden and spent his childhood here. The house he lived in no longer exists, but the studio where he first studied painting does. It's very small and most interesting. A media presentation has paintings come alive to tell the story of Rembrandt's youth, and of friends featured in his paintings. It's not very long, but extremely well done. And it is free!


We took the train from Leiden to various cities - Rotterdam, Delft, Haarlem, and Amsterdam. They were easy to use and very reliable. 


Our walk from the train station to the museum took quite awhile, but we had the time and enjoyed seeing various parts of Amsterdam. How fun it would be to have a boat moored right outside your front door!


I had hoped to visit the Van Gogh Museum, but there was a mix-up in our ticket date and we ended up not going there. Instead, we visited the Rijksmuseum. One thing I wish I knew more about is art history. The little I do know is just enough to make me realize how much more there is. I have learned to focus on a selection of exhibits in a museum. If I wander at will, I am soon overwhelmed. 

Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem


There are a number of Rembrandt's works in the Rijksmuseum. I love the light and the fineness of the hair in the above painting. Apparently, he often used the sharpened end of a wooden paintbrush to create strands of hair. 


The Night Watch by Rembrandt



The Night Watch is one of Rembrandt's most famous works, and is surprisingly large, measuring 12 by 14 1/2 feet. He must have stood on a ladder to paint it. 


The Milkmaid by Vermeer

Vermeer was another artist I knew of and whose works I wanted to see. 


Still Life with Cheese by Floris van Dyck


I'd not heard much of van Dyck, but loved the subject of this still life. It's so Dutch! Cheese!


We wandered around other parts of the museum and Tim was especially taken with the intricate models of old ships. These technical scale models were built for the Royal Navy and used for constructing the actual ships and training crews. The above model is of the William Rex, built in 1698. So detailed!

Rain fell in the night and today has been softly grey. A good day for puttering at home and not doing too much of anything. 

A number of you asked about the Cranberry Pie my daughter made for our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. Here is a link: Cranberry Lime Pie. It's on the Bon Appetit site and is sometimes behind a paywall. If you do a search for the recipe it comes up with a list of ingredients in the preview. My daughter also used a graham cracker crust with spices in place of the gingersnap crust. 

Also, the initials I used to mark the places at the table were wooden, not chocolate! I'm sure the children would have much preferred chocolate. I use the letters from time to time at the table, or for making words around the house. 


14 comments:

  1. I loved the Rijksmuseum too especially the Night Watch. As you say huge! A school group were looking at it when we visited and their animated faces were wonderful. The Van Gogh gallery was a disappointment to us because it was overcrowded with visitors and you couldn’t appreciate the art. B x

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  2. I have always loved the Dutch painters, but sadly have never made it to Amsterdam, though I still have time! What intricate work those ships had, imagine having to work out where each strand went?

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  3. Dearest Lorrie,
    Those letters looked so much like the chocolate ones I'm used to!
    https://mariettesbacktobasics.blogspot.com/2012/11/since-1896-dutch-chocolate-letters-have.html
    Those canal houses that I just put back onto the new Replacements by Andersen Windows in our veranda. They are Delft blue and original replicas!
    With Rembrandt's Night Watch you get transferred back in time—like actually being there... SO REAL!
    Vermeer was another grand painter.
    With Tim, I could have stood there to study the intricacies of that model ship! Pieter always explained that for the ship's mast got made of white pine and cypress wood that goes upright in a straight way and is very compact and strong. Thinking of all those storms at sea makes you appreciate that and especially for that time and era without any weather forecast or whatsoever! Brave men!!!
    Hugs,
    Mariette

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  4. The art museums of the Netherlands were a highlight of our travels in the world. Amazing!

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  5. Happy Thanksgiving!


    The Night Watch is amazing how large it is. Life size people even.
    Lovely trip and pictures Thank you

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  6. I loved the museum tour -- we loved Amsterdam (and the trains in all the countries we visited) but sadly (from my point of view, maybe not my other half's) we didn't visit the museums because of time constraints.

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  7. Anonymous5:09 PM

    I loved visiting this museum once upon a time. Amsterdam is special too.

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  8. Marilyn M.5:10 PM

    It's me, Marilyn M. in the previous post. Ugh!

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  9. What a treat to visit that museum. Thanks for sharing the art work. Magnificent.

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  10. How beautiful! I’ve been there before. :-) I find museums to be too overwhelming.

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