As Steven and I had to pass through the Markt each day to see the sights in Bruges, I was able to get a much better shot of the huge bell tower that dominated the square. If you remember the view of the top from the previous post, it had been leaning since 1740 but not quite as much to qualify as the Leaning Tower of Bruges!
While touring Brussels, then Antwerp, and finally Bruges, one thing we had not seen much of was any parks or green space. That was pretty noticeable compared to where we are lucky enough to live in Colorado where there are parks and homes with lawns everywhere. Walking around Minnewater or Water of Love was such a refreshing change and very welcome even after the profusion of adorable squares, quaint gabled homes, and postcard-perfect canals. Though the lake was the epitome of peace when we visited, centuries ago this area was far from quaint with a busy harbor and ships shuttling cargo from ocean-going ships to flat-bottomed boats that traversed the town's canals to warehouses and the Markt.
For locals, the presence of swans reminds them of a 15th-century long-necked, traitorous mayor who was beheaded after collaborating with the Austrians. The locals were warned by the Austrians that similarly, long-necked swans would inhabit this area to remind them of the murder. And, they do!
A medieval woman hoping to use the facilities - that was me a few centuries later!
Steven and I have been fantastically lucky to be able to tour much of Europe together in the last eight years but the chance to visit almshouses in Bruges was certainly a new experience for us. I read there were about 20 almshouses in the city but only two were open as far as we could find out. Not far from Minnewater was Nieuwe Gentweg and the entrance through a sign aptly marked Godshuis or God's House - see how easy Flemish is!
The almshouses were a medieval form of housing for the poor with the rich paying for someone's small room here in exchange for lots of prayers.
The previous day Steven and I had arrived too late at the Church of Our Lady to explore fully the towering brick church seen as a memorial to the power and wealth of Bruges in its heyday. Like most churches in Belgium, it was Roman Catholic.
Unfortunately, my photos don't do justice to the whitewashed walls on the bottom, the gray stone halfway up, and the red-brick ceiling. As a result of heretics destroying the stained-glass windows in the 14th and 15th centuries, the church was lit more brightly than it would have been otherwise.
Once dividing the clergy from the commoners in the nave was the medieval-style screen that was topped by the organ.
As we'd already seen in most other Belgian churches, except the Basilica of the Holy Blood the day before, there was a majestic Baroque wooden pulpit with a roof that seemed to float in mid-air! Can you imagine what commoners must have felt hundreds of years ago hearing their priest pontificate from literally on high?!
The Adoration Chapel:
I hadn't realized before visiting this church that it was only beginning in the late 16th-century that the Catholic sacrament of confession took place in a specially designed piece of furniture called a confessional. These, sculpted from oak in 1697, are considered the most beautiful baroque sculptures in the city.
To the left of the painted altarpiece was a wooden balcony on the wall which was part of the Gruutthuse Mansion next door and built in the late 15th-century. The powerful adviser to the Duke of Burgundy and his family could attend Mass without ever having to leave their palace. Priests could access the private chapel via a staircase.
This Blessed Sacrament Chapel was only built in the mid-19th century in the same Neo-Gothic style throughout from the murals above the tabernacle, the magnificent stained-glass windows by architect Jean-Baptiste de Bethune. With church elders liking his work so much, Bethune was then given the commission to provide stained-glass windows for the two adjacent chapels.
On the other side of the altar was a most unusual chapel as it had 14th-century tombs that had been found during excavations. Beginning around 1270, it became customary for Bruges residents to paint the inside of brick-lined graves to show what they thought of the afterlife. The Virgin and Child were normally shown at the foot end so she could intercede with God on behalf of the deceased. The crucified Christ was portrayed at the head, thereby bringing redemption to humanity through his death. Angels on the side walls with incense burners accompanied the departed's soul to heaven.
The drawings looked quite rudimentary because tomb painters had to work very quickly to satisfy the custom of the dead being buried the same day during the Middle Ages. As of the 15th-century, graves were only decorated with drawings on paper instead of being painted.
On the High Altar lay statues atop coffins of Mary of Burgundy and her father Charles the Bold, the last local rulers of Bruges. The symbols of faith and fidelity were indicated by the presence of the lion and dog at their feet.
Mary of Burgundy was just 25-years-old when she fell from her horse and died in 1482 in Bruges and had already ruled the Low Countries for five years after her father's death. The side panels depicted her family tree on both her parents' sides.
The early deaths of the twin monarchs resulted in the slow but four-century-long decline of Bruges as Mary's widower was an heir to the Holy Roman Empire which was governed by the Habsburgs in Vienna. The Austrians didn't understand or care about problems in Bruges. When the North Sea port also silted up about the same time, trade shifted to Amsterdam and Antwerp and the "city was mothballed."
It was a little creepy standing by the statues and then peering underneath the tombs at their actual excavated gravesites. The angel paintings were, however, pretty remarkable.
From the statues, we could look directly at the Baroque choir stalls just a few feet away. Above the stalls were the 30 coats-of-arms of the Knights of the Golden Fleece. The prestigious order was founded by Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy, in 1430 after marrying Isabella of Portugal. Once a member of the Order, you were for life unless of course, you were expelled for failing to follow the rules. This happened to John of Burgundy, Mary's cousin after he was accused of heresy and straying from the faith. His coat-of-arms was then painted black!
The most famous image at the Church of Our Lady was Madonna and Child by Michelangelo who took a break from carving one of his most famous works, David, to sculpt the almost-lifesize Mary with a young Jesus standing in front. I read that Michangelo only ever carved in Carrara marble when he was confident he'd achieved what he wanted. The glorious sculpture is said to be Michelangelo's only one to leave Italy during his lifetime which makes it even more special.
It was endearing seeing Mary and Jesus' hands linking so tenderly as if there might have been a premonition of danger ahead.
Located in one of Europe's oldest surviving hospital buildings was a former monastery which became the Sint-Janshospital or St. John Hospital, a medieval facility where monks and nuns cared for the sick. Over five hundred years ago, when Bruges was a major destination for pilgrims who came to see the Holy Blood relic that we'd toured the day before, the hospital had to care for a lot of patients. The hospital is considered one of the city's top sights because of its collection of art in the monastery chapel by the greatest Flemish Primitive artist, Hans Memling.
I admit that it was hard to imagine the sick and dying lying in this vast hall with the brick walls, stone pillars, and wood-beamed ceiling.
Large oil paintings by artists unknown to us showed the hospital in former times.
When I saw this painting of the hospital as it looked so long ago, it came to life for me. I could visualize a nun administering Last Rites, a dog playing, food cooking, and the floor getting mopped.
Displays held medical texts and instruments though some of them looked like they may have come from a hardware store instead of an operating room!
It's important to realize that the religious art in the hospital was in place for the comfort and relief of the patients from their pain and suffering. The art was considered therapeutic and was intended to assist in the patients' mental and spiritual health. The hope for a miracle came from paintings of saints.
The numerous Crucifixions "reminded the sufferers that Christ could feel their pain, having lived it himself."
The slabs were the gravestones of prominent members of religious orders who tended to the sick.
Memling was hired by the hospital to create paintings that would bring solace to the sick. The St. Ursula Shrine carried the remains of a Christian martyred by the ancient Romans, Ursula, whose bones were discovered in Cologne, Germany, and brought to Bruges in 1489. Her remains were placed in the church-shaped golden shrine whose 'stained-glass windows' were Memling paintings that described her legend. Once again, I urge you to click on the photos below so you can see the exquisite details as the story is revealed on both sides of the shrine.
On St. Ursula's feast day of October 21 every year, the hospital nuns would carry the shrine to the chapel as an object of devotion. The shrine was also kept there during the 18th century when the French occupied Bruges and during the last century's two world wars.
Let your mind wander and imagine sick and dying patients lying in their hospital beds looking at this Memling triptych above the church's high altar called both St. John Altarpiece and The Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine. Though Memling's work was dedicated to John the Evangelist and John the Baptist, the hospital's patron saints, it also included a vision of heaven and the end of the world. I can't see the latter would have brought peace to the suffering!
In the central panel, Mary sits with baby Jesus on her lap with the patron saints behind her, and St. Catherine on the left and book-reading St. Barbara on the right. Note the symmetry of the painting with the classical columns in the background, the position of the two saints, and baby Jesus in the center placing a ring on Catherine's finger, thereby confirming the "mystical marriage between them."
Before this, I wasn't familiar with the story of St. Catherine who defied her pagan parents and joined the forbidden Christian faith, and spoke out against pagan Rome and its emperor, Maxentius. After swearing her loyalty to the man she'd already married in a mystical vision - Christ - Maxentius orders her to be laid out on a spiked wheel. When it breaks, she is beheaded. Notice Memling painted her with the Catherine Wheel at her feet and also the scenes of Bruges on the right-hand side.
In the gruesome images of the left panel, we see the beheaded John the Baptist with blood still gushing from his head and Salome in green receiving his head on a platter. Note the complete absence of emotion in the solemn and yet graceful faces!
In the final panel, Christ is looking at the end of the world in a vision of the Apocalypse. Yet again, he appears serene with the wars, plagues, and fires on the horizon, and with the hated Four Horsemen causing havoc on the cosmos as they gallop over islands or clouds.
The glowing colors were so rich and the imagery almost modern it's a wonder Memling painted these masterpieces in the late 15th century.
Bear with me as we toured more of Memling's art at the Groeninge Museum. As Bruges was northern Europe's most cultured, most cosmopolitan, and richest city in the 1400s, painting techniques were imported and exported with each shipload. Beautiful paintings were considered a reasonable luxury in line with fancy clothes and furniture. As the Groeninge Museum is celebrated for having one of the world's best collections of art produced in the city and surrounding area, we didn't want to miss the opportunity of seeing more world-class Flemish art.
Entering the museum was not a simple thing of opening the door and voila, you're there. Nope, we had to wander through several courtyards and let our anticipation build with what we were about to see!
Once we finally entered, we were greeted with the Golden Age Masters.
I hope you weren't anticipating some beauteous buxom woman or a gentle pastoral scene as here was the disturbing painting done in 1498 by Gerard David of a man, a judge accused of corruption, and then stretched out on a table and being skinned alive! David, Memling's successor as the city's leading artist, painted this when Bruges was entering its long decline and was suffering financial struggles against the Habsburg empire in Austria.
The top-right corner showed the judge's skin hanging over the new judge's throne. Note the Renaissance touches that were just appearing in David's time - the baby angels over the judgment throne, the Roman-style medallions, and the garlands. As the painting was done for City Hall, you had to think it must have acted as a disincentive for officeholders abusing their authority.
Jan van Eyck is considered the world's first oil painter and his masterpiece was the 1436 painting of Virgin and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele. Mary in red is playing with baby Jesus who looks at the dragon-slaying knight George who introduces his namesake, Joris, a church official dressed in white. Canon Joris who commissioned the painting is shown "with unvarnished reality and crystal reality." Attired in blue on the left is a bishop, St. Donatian.
The painter reminds the viewer of Bruges' city colors of red (Mary), white (Joris), and blue (the saints). Nothing is left to chance or imagination in the painting. Though this is not a typically religious painting and there are no angels or halos, God is everywhere in it as travel writer Rick Steves points out. Take note of the white damask robe, Adonai or Lord written on St. George's breastplate, the presence of Mary and the saints brought down from heaven and into a home in Bruges.
Also by van Eyck was this portrait of his wife Margareta in 1439. It and the companion self-portrait was one of Europe's first husband-and-wife sets. They married when he, at age 35, had recently arrived in Bruges, and she was just 20. Looking at it closely, we can just pick put her wedding ring, and her hair, almost invisible as was the period's fashion, pulled back under her lace covering. The painting was revolutionary because it was one of history's first individual portraits not of a king, duke, or religious person. As such, it acknowledged the glory of ordinary people.
St. Luke Drawing the Virgin's Portrait was painted by Rogier van der Weyden, another giant among Flemish Primitive artists. Where van Eyck portrays his characters with minimal emotion, van der Weyden's Mary and even baby Jesus are joyful and animated. Later artists would attempt to expand on the human emotion displayed here.
St. Luke, the patron saint of painters, looks on ready to draw Mary and Jesus.
As visually stunning and arresting as the van der Weyden painting had just been, Death and the Miser by Jan Provoost was anything but calming and rewarding to look at. The painter arrived in Bruges in 1494, the year Memling died, because he was so attracted to the city's rich artistic climate like other artists. He portrays a smiling skeleton placing coins on a table while the worried man then hands over a promissory note. The man on the right is a self-portrait and looks like he's advising the skeleton not to trade any more years of his life for some more money.
Provoost painted from experience as he'd toiled for businessmen that he later depicted. When he painted this in 1515, the city's society was at odds whether to praise or condemn the capitalistic society that was in conflict with Christian poverty.
The flip side of the painting was a soothing religious work that was ironically purchased by wealthy businessmen!
After viewing Memling's stunning paintings of the gilded St. Ursula earlier at the hospital museum, we were treated to his Morel Triptych done in 1484. This painting was deemed so important because it was likely the world's first group portrait! Memling depicted a wealthy two-term mayor from Bruges and his extended family.
St. Christopher, the patron saint of seafarers who brought such wealth to the Morel family, is shown in the center panel as a giant carrying baby Jesus, atop the composition, across a river. He is flanked by saints on both sides.
While saints comprise the central panel, the "true stars" were the earthly mortals, the 20 different people in the large Morel family in the side panels. As with other Memling paintings, the symmetry, the bright colors, the city's details in the background were features common in this work.
I hope the paintings I described above also resonated with you as I felt very lucky to see these Flemish Primitives masterpieces that in several cases were of historical importance to the art world.
When we were in Brussels about a week before coming to Bruges, Steven and I had seen a museum solely devoted to works by Belgian artist Rene Magritte. I cannot say he's one of my favorites but I sure won't soon forget his images of clouds, torsos, and balls all jumbled together to assault our senses and our conventional ideas of art! This was aptly called The Assault.
Another 20th-century Belgian master painter was Paul Delvaux whose work included Serenity. Delvaux achieved fame for painting pale nudes and moonlit landscapes.
In an adjacent courtyard was the Arentshuis Museum that was affiliated with the Groeninge Museum. It featured the work of Bruges artist Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956).
A self-portrait done in water color:
He specialized in dark engravings of workers and homeless people.
Brangwyn also completed a series of the Station of the Cross,
designed furniture ...
and china! He was certainly a man of many talents.
I hope you enjoyed learning about some great Flemish art on my mini-art history tour of Bruges! If you ever get a chance to visit this astounding city, go as I know you won't be disappointed. There's world-class art, churches that have attracted pilgrims, postcard-pretty canals, the begijnhof retreat, and mouth-watering chocolates for those with a discerning palate!
Next post: A riveting private tour of WW II battlefield sites in Flanders Fields.
Posted on October 2nd, 2021, from Zurich after spending the day on a long boat cruise of Lake Zurich and then taking oodles and oodles of trains and many hours to and from Rheinfall, a pretty sight in northern Switzerland that made Steven question whether the latter was really worth it!
No comments:
Post a Comment