Amsterdam, Day 5 - Rembrandt and Canal Tour

Commuting through Amsterdam

First, an obligatory lichen shot. Some people are bird watchers--I admire plants that can grow on rocks. Though I don't learn their names or have a life list.



Here's an over-the-top light pole.



Here's a broader view of that same bridge.



Because you needed to see a string of those over-the-top lightposts in context with multiple fake ship bows.

Here's a building with a lot of red shutters.



I have a fascination with real shutters. They can be so useful. Even in these windows that are such a silly shape to make real shutters for.

I don't think I'd like lichens on shutters, though. Two great tastes that don't go together.

And here's another fine example of the triple crosses of protection.



Here's a modern building, and I think it's on a street with a street market.



Rembrandt's house

We saw all those things on our way to our first stop of the day: Rembrandt's house. Finally we got to see the inside of one of the tall, skinny houses. And they let us take pictures! (I didn't use a flash, though.)

(I wonder why we call Rembrandt van Rijn "Rembrandt" and Vincent van Gogh "van Gogh.")

Of course I can hardly claim it is a representative Dutch house. Rembrandt bought it at the height of his career, but still couldn't afford it. He never paid the mortgage and ended up in bankruptcy. So, I expect it's a rather finer-than-average place.

At the time of this bankruptcy, many of his things were sold off and records were kept. So they had a clue on how to refurnish the house when it became a museum.

So, shall I show you inside?

Here is the center stairwell.



Robin really liked the hand rail because couldn't fit his whole foot on the step. I think I could have, but I actually walked up it sideways myself. You can see from the wear pattern that no one uses the inside part.

Each floor had two to three rooms. Maybe they all had three rooms, but we were always allowed into the front and rear rooms and only sometimes was there a room sticking out one side room into which we were allowed. On the bottom floor were the kitchen and the living room/bedroom. The notes say that the kitchen was the most comfortable room in the house, I'm guessing because it was warm. It's certainly huge.



The cook slept in a "box bed" in one wall.



In the living room was Rembrandt's box bed. I expect that this sort of bed was more protected from drafts than beds out in the middle of the floor.



This room does look a tiny bit fancy.

The next floor up has the entry. Here is where he welcomed visitors. In his chair by the window, he could watch the traffic go by (when the shutter was open).



Then he would take them to the ante room (through that door) to do business. Like many other artists, he was also an art dealer, selling both his own works and those of others.



In back room he kept his favorite works (maybe).



In the back room of the next floor, he stored his collections.





He did his painting in the front room. Here's where the paints were mixed (usually by an apprentice) (notice how there are no tubes of paint here).



Here's a side view of a huge easel. You can see that even with the bottom shutters closed, there's still some good light in here.



He didn't just paint, he also did etchings. I haven't been a fan in the past, but this one of Amsterdam I photographed and later, in the Rijksmuseum gift shop, I bought the refrigerator magnet version to take home.



Here's a view of his courtyard.



And another view.



Here's the front.



Mmm. Green shutters.

Commuting through Amsterdam some more

Here's a silly cafe next door to Rembrandt's house.



Here is a view of another modern building taken from a bridge. I remember that a guy was blowing bubbles here, making people smile, but soap on the wet surface was very, very slick.



After this visit, we dropped some stuff off at home and returned to the Rijksmuseum. So I got some more shots from our neighborhood.

The flamingos were out.



Here's my old pal the stegosaurus again.



And here's the other dinosaur looking very fierce.



"Don't think I don't see you there."

Then I tried to capture the way they do their roads.



You can see the tram lane in the middle, then the car lane, then the car parking, then the bike lane (brick color), then the sidewalk (grey color). Notice how you can park your car without entering the bike lane. My city's method of just making the bike lanes extra wide to fit parallel parking in them seems barbarian by comparison.

Here's a shot of some traffic lights.



You can't see the light for cars from here, but I had perfect timing so the other three were all different colors. The small tram light is red, the bicycle light is yellow, and the pedestrian light is green. Cool, eh?

Night Watch

They did let us take a picture of the outside of the Rijksmuseum. This side is not under construction.



Robin really likes Rembrandt's Night Watch, so we went back to look at that for a while. Back in those days it was common to paint a portrait of a company of men, but you generally posed them standing in rows. In this painting, he caught them all in action, much more fun.

The most shocking thing I learned about it was that the edges were cut off so that it could be fitted into the spot made for it in a (different) museum. Unbelievable.

I actually preferred the painting on the other end of the room from Night Watch, Frans Hals and Pieter Codde's The Meagre Company. It is also a painting of a bunch of guys, but these guys, although kind of standing in rows, are gesturing and talking and doing other small things and so it's still interesting and you can see more of their personalities than in a regular painting. The other fascinating thing was that they were so clearly real people. For example, one was Nicolas Cage. Another was Robin Williams.

Etching

We also learned a little about etching. First you cover a sheet of copper with a thin layer of a wax mixture. Then you carve through this (and maybe sometimes through the copper as well, for bolder lines). Then put the whole thing in a mildly acidic solution to etch the copper in all the places where the wax mixture was scraped away. Then wipe off the coating and cover the whole thing with ink (the consistency of oil paint) kind of like silk screening. Then scrape it off the surface (leaving some behind in the etched areas). Then wipe more ink off with gauze. Then wipe even more off by rubbing it with chalk dust with the side of your hand. Then finally put it on one of those big printing press machines, lay a piece of paper over it and roll a weight across it. Ta da!

I learned that I like how Rembrandt etched curly hair (as well as how he etched windmills and tall skinny buildings).

Bye-bye Rijksmuseum.





Canal Cruise

We went on a lovely, romantic evening canal cruise, since taking a canal cruise is a must-do according to all the tour books. The tour guide was rather terrible, though. He sure liked to go on and on about a lot of boring things. And since most of the few people on the boat were ignoring him, he looked to me as his audience, thus pressuring me to not roll my eyes that much.

I now think (based on these two data points, plus one from Jamaica) that the best tour guides are outsiders who love the place and then move there. (Our bike tour guide was from England, and our Jamaica tour guide was an outsider, too.)

He did teach me the name for bell gables (which must be the ones that look like singing sisters to me). And step gables (the most common kind in Belgium). And I noticed for the first time that bell gables are semi-false fronts--the roofs behind them are just regular pointed roofs.

On gables you might find gable hooks for hauling things up to the top floor. And you might find gable stones with address-like things such as the profession of the resident. (There were no house numbers (or family names) until Napoleon.) Many gable stones have gone missing, but it's fashionable to replace them now.

We saw a one-window-wide house (less than two meters wide). But it's not the narrowest house. In one area, regular lots are seven meters wide, but double lots (14 meters) were sold for a while. Those houses were 40 meters deep. So each floor of the regular lot was a little smaller than my house, but there are several floors.

I noticed some houses with parallelogram floorplans. I first noticed this when I saw ceiling beams at a 45-degree angle from what I expected considering they were going from one side of the room to the other. Normally such beams would be parallel to the front wall.

This guide is the one who told us that the vibrations from modern cars (and, fairly recently, trucks) are part of what causes the foundation troubles for buildings these days. Modern foundations are concrete and are 30 - 40 meters high.

He said Holland was the richest of the seven provinces of the Netherlands, and so the only one most foreigners cared about, so that's why people sometimes refer to the Netherlands as Holland.

He also said that the Calvinist rulers required the rich (in guilds) to finance welfare such as almshouses and orphanages. He said the Palace of Justice (to be replaced in two years) used to be an orphan house. And the Hermitage had old ladies living in it as late as three years ago.

He showed us hand-holds (handles) on the under side of some of the bridges. The canals are only three meters deep, so barges can be poled through them except under low bridges. So the hand-holds let them pull their barge through.

We also saw a Mennonite church which looked to me to be straight out of the American West, a white wood church building , right between all the Amsterdam-looking buildings.

Commuting in the dark

On the way back we saw this car.



Robin says it's quite rare, since it was built in the days before rustproofing, so enjoy!