Schokland - An Island On The Mainland

I first came across this painting in 1975 in the Zuider Zee Museum in Enkhuizen. The Museum was much smaller then and to me, this was one of the fascinating exhibits. The painting was intriguing, filled with drama and tension as it depicted the last days before the evacuation of Schokland, then an island in the Zuider Zee.

Archeological excavations show that the island had once been part of the mainland and had been inhabited 6500 years ago. Excavations also show that 2000 years ago the area was starting to lose chunks to the sea. Gradually Schokland became a peninsula and then an island. During the ninth and tenth centuries, the inhabitants started building terps and dikes to keep the remaining land. By the nineteenth century, the farmland on the island had disappeared and the Islanders became fishermen. The reduced island was plagued by floods 

The small island was divided in two, with the northern part governed by Amsterdam and the remainder by Emmeloord. It was also divided as Catholic and protestant and they were strongly against intermarriage of faiths. With an ever shrinking gene pool and seventy-five percent of the inhabitants on welfare, the 650 residents were evacuated by Royal decree in 1859. The Schoklanders were relocated to surrounding villages which had a mix of Catholics and Protestants.

The former island now stands in the midst of a polder. Noordoostpolder was reclaimed from the sea in 1942 and now houses a museum and the restored church and has parts of the dikes still visible. In 1995 it became the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Netherlands.

The angry Zuider Zee, to which the island once surrendered, has been replaced with a sea of potatoes. 

Return to the Loft

We had rented out of loft apartment for nearly two years, while I rented a small apartment close to the airport. My newly rented apartment was 450 square feet (137.16 meters) and conveniently located above the Skytrain station and stores. 

The view from the 17th floor was stunning as I watched sunsets over Vancouver Island and at night watched the string of lights in the sky as flights arrive at YVR airport. My lease for the year had expired with no extension given. Not that I wasn’t the perfect tenant, but the fact that there was a loophole in the renter's agreement. The apartment owner could increase the rent significantly on a new lease only; giving them the opportunity to maximize the rent by $300 which does not include a parking space. The increase made it unafordable for temporary accommodation and it was time to return to the loft. 

I gave my tenant at the loft the required two months notice and he found a new place right away giving me a month to come back to the loft.  With the now empty space, being like a clean canvas, it gave me the opportunity to give it a well-deserved paint over. 

My previous tenant has also left me with an entire wall painted black. Chalkboard black, which made the entrance rather dark and was on my list for textured wallpaper.

 I had invited Annelies, my granddaughter, to draw on the wall as this was the only time she was allowed to do just that before wallpapering. 

The loft had been a telephone exchange building, built in 1913 of red brick and wooden beams. About eight years ago it was converted into living space. The plank ceilings which were left natural has darkened and aged through time. The roughly cut planks placed on it sides to form the roof and the flooring has a simplistic design of their own. Supported by exposed Douglas Fir beams are also used as posts throughout the building. 

Tulip Mania

Tulips originated in Turkey and their first recorded appearance in Europe was in 1559, in Augsburg Germany.

They were not noticed for their beauty, nor for their perfume, but for their stateliness. The intenseness of the tulip's colours differed from all other flowers then known in Europe. The multi-coloured effect of intricate lines and flame-like streaks on the petals was vivid, spectacular and exotic. Because they were rare and desirable, they were also expensive.

Twelve years later the merchants of Amsterdam dealt directly with dealers in Constantinople for their purchases of tulip bulbs. Considered a rarity in Europe, high prices were established by the weight of the bulb. It was discovered that tulip bulbs could tolerate the harsh conditions of the Low Lands, and with that, their popularity slowly increased through over the next thirty years.

In 1634 the rage for the tulips increased and the weaving looms in Haarlem were abandoned for the more lucrative planting of tulip bulbs. Haarlem became the tulip capital of the Netherlands. As the mania increased, so did the price of the bulbs and it was mentioned that a merchant paid the equivalent of $40,000 for forty tulip bulbs. By 1636 the tulip bulb had become the fourth leading export of the Netherlands after gin, herring and cheese.

The Semper Augustus bulb was much sought after and there were only two available for sale in 1636, one in Amsterdam and the other in Haarlem. Competitive bidding for these pushed all prices to record highs. Shares of rare bulbs were sold on the Amsterdam, Haarlem and Leyden stock exchanges. Prices reached their climax in 1636 with speculative gambling, and when investors start selling their shares, panic followed. Prices dropped and the market collapsed.

The collapse began in Haarlem when buyers did not show up at the bulb auction. Since at the time in Haarlem, the bubonic plague was near its height, this might have been a factor in helping burst the bubble. Many fortunes were made and lost overnight.

The term "tulip mania" is now often used metaphorically in referring to a massive economic bubble, when asset values deviate widely from intrinsic values.

Most of the old tulip bulb varieties have died out, though virus-free, variegated tulips continue and are still exported in vast quantities today. Tulips bloom in April and May for only about a week.

Haarlem remains the tulip capitol of the world.

The White Village of Thorn

                             

The village of Thorn is located in Limburg, near Maastbracht and was once a small principality led by the abbess of the convent and her chapter of twenty ladies of the highest nobility. It had formally     been a drained swamp near the Roman Road between Maastricht and Nijmegen and today it is known as the White Village for its white washed brick houses in the center of town. 

Count Ansfried and his wife Hilsondis founded Thorn Abbey and their daughter Benedicta became the first Abbess of the Abbey. Later in 995 the Count became bishop of Utrecht. In the crypt of the Abbey are the remains of Hilsondis and Benedicta.

The ladies were of the highest nobility and had to have proof of their pedigree. It was also a place for the nobility to house their unmarried daughters. Two sisters Clara Elisabeth of Manderscheidt-Blankenheim and her sister Anna Salome of Manderscheidt-Blankenheim were both Abesses of the abbey. Clara was known as the "ill lady" and suffered from disease all her life.

                                              

Previously the abbess and the chapter were endowed with clerical tasks as it was originally a convent of the order of the Benedictines. Since the twelve century, it developed into a secular order and became a convent community for women and at its peak included twenty female canons. They still wore the nuns habit and were involved with the local community. The Vatican did not approve of them wearing the habit and asked for them to change to lay clothing. They refused the request.

They formed the government of a genuinely sovereign miniature principality the smallest independent state in the German Holy Roman Empire approximately 250 x 250 meters. They lived in harmony and six canons performed liturgical services. The female canons lived in a large complex of convent buildings from which only the church remains.

After the beheading of Marie Antoinette in 1793 and with the French invasion in the winter of 1794-1795, its inhabitants fled, leaving behind their homes. Most houses were destroyed by the French and the have-nots of the area started to move into the large vacant homes. The French applied a window tax, based on the size of the windows, which the new occupants could not afford. They bricked in the windows and covered it up by whitewashing the walls. 

In 1797 marked the end of the miniature principality of Thorn that had lasted for eight hundred years, run by women without the need for fortification, ramparts or a moat. It later became a municipality of The Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Many alterations have since been made to the church and its now baroque interior has been painted white giving the church once more a feminine touch.

Frans Hals

Frans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter born in 1582 or 83 in Antwerpen, which was then in the Southern Netherlands. His father was a textile merchant and he moved the family to Haarlem while Frans was still an infant, and Frans spent the remainder of his long life there.

Hals entered the art world as an apprentice to Carel van Mander. As his art developed, he introduced a looser, more intimate style of painting with noticeable brushstrokes and he was instrumental in the evolution of the seventeenth-century group portraiture.

Saint Bavo church, which dominates the center of Haarlem, was originally built as a Catholic Church between 1370 and 1520 and became a cathedral in 1559. Less than twenty years later it was confiscated in the name of the Protestant Reformation and has been a Protestant church ever since. 

With the take over the church, all of its Catholic-oriented art was removed and mostly sold-off. Other confiscated paintings were restored by Frans Hals and transferred to Government buildings. During this time when religious theme paintings were losing popularity, Hals started his career in portraiture. He was accepted into the Sint Lucas Gilde; Haarlem's prominent painter's guild.

Frans Hals is best known for his portraits, mainly of wealthy citizens like Pieter van den Broecke and Isaac Massa, whom he painted three times. He also painted large group portraits of local civic leaders, military guards and Regents of local hospitals. In his group portraits, he innovated by capturing each character in a different pose and with individual facial expressions, offering a more relaxed atmosphere. Hals is also renowned for his character portraits of itinerant players and singers, gentlefolk, fishwives and tavern heroes.

After the deaths of Peter Paul Rubens in 1640 and Anthonis van Dyck in 1641, Frans Hals became the most prominent portrait painter in the Netherlands. Although Frans Hals' work was in demand throughout his life, he lived so long that he witnessed his work go out of style and experienced financial difficulties late in life. He continued to paint and worked as an art restorer, art dealer and an art tax expert for the city councilors.

In 1644 Frans Hals became the chairman of the Haarlem painters guild. He is regarded as the master of the Haarlem school of painting. He died in Haarlem on 10 August 1666 and was buried in of Saint Bavo church in the center of Haarlem.

The Artists of Haarlem

After the fall of Antwerp in 1585, immigrant Flemish artists arrived in Haarlem and added to the already thriving painting community. Between 1605 and 1635 over one hundred thousand paintings were produced in Haarlem, with competition for commissions high.

There were several guilds formed to protect the professional status of the artists. Most prominent among these was the Saint Lucas Guild, with Frans Hals as one of its members. The Saint Lucas Guild went through many changes as the demand for paintings decreased and it was dissolved in 1795, later revived and again dissolved in 1860.

The artist group KZOD, which rents the upper floor of De Waag, was established in 1821. It was approved by royal decree on 26 January 1932 as the Federated Holland Societies of Artists, Sculptors and Engravers. Becoming a member of the society, the artists' work had to be submitted to be juried by a panel of nine art professors. Five votes were needed for acceptance.

My father had joined the group before the Nazi occupation in 1939 and continued after he returned in 1945. It was with the acknowledgement and support from other artists that he submitted his work. At first, his work was rejected at the initial presentation. However, as a second presentation, he introduced his self-portrait. My father was honoured with all nine votes, a first in KZOD history, and this portrait became his masterpiece.

With the mass emigration that took place in the early fifties from the Netherlands, artists looked at the new world to establish themselves. Throughout the years the membership of KZOD declined. No longer juried by art professors and the studio is now rented out to a more relaxed modern group. 

De Waag

The painting: The Weigh House and Crane on the Spaarne in Haarlem, circa 1670 by Gerrit Adriaansz Berckheyde.

In the seventeenth century, the River Spaarne was the most important transportation route for goods coming into Haarlem. The Weigh House, strategically located in central Haarlem where the Spaarne River joins the Beek, a small canal that was used to carry fresh water from the dunes to supply the brewers of the city. In the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, the city of Haarlem, then known for its many beer breweries.

Incoming goods were weighed and then taxed. The wooden crane was used for the next four hundred years for loading heavy cargo to and from vessels. The Bakenesse tower in the background on the left still dominates Haarlem's skyline.

The Weigh House was designed by Lieven de Key around 1597 and built from stone imported from Namur, which is now Belgium. It is the only building in Haarlem in this style and it was designed to function as a landmark and a building of authority. The weighmaster was the judge and he ensured that correct taxes levied on shiploads of grain and other goods entering Haarlem. Inside the building, the large cast iron balance is still visible in its original spot and can still be seen while enjoying a beer in the now pub.
In the sixteenth and seventeen centuries, Haarlem became known as a mecca for Dutch painters. Artist such as Frans Hals, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Adriaen van Ostade had their studios here. The city also became a refuge for the Huguenots. Many of those who arrived were textile merchants, weavers, potters, ceramicists, lace makers and glass blowers. Haarlem welcomed them, they assimilated, flourished and stayed.

In 1821 the upper floor of the Waag was rented to the artist club KZOD, Kunts Zijn Ons Doel, an inspiring group of local artist, sculptors, engravers, graphic designers and illustrators. Leen Spierenburg, the illustrator from Panorama Magazine, was part of this group.

The wooden crane was demolished after four centuries, but the rest of this picture remains the same.

The Begijnhof Amsterdam

On one of my return trip to Amsterdam, I stopped at the Begijnhof, one of the oldest inner courts in the city of Amsterdam. I first visited it with my mother fifty years ago and at the time still inhabited by Catholic nuns.

The court was founded during the Middle Ages and lies within the perimeters of the Singel, the old city's ring canal. Originally the Begijnhof was entirely encircled by water, an island on its own, with the only entrance by a bridge across the Begijnsloot, a small ditch. The Begijnhof is still at a medieval street level and lies one meter below the rest of the old city center. The existence of the courtyard was mentioned in 1389.

The Begijnhof had a resemblance to a convent, but the Beguine were not nuns, as they did not take vows. They could leave the court and return to the outside world and even marry. They did not renounce their worldly possessions, and if they could afford it, some had her servants.

The houses in the courtyard are tall and close together giving privacy to the yard. There are forty-seven houses, each one different from the other with new facades dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Most houses date much earlier and eighteen of the houses still have a gothic style wooden frames.

The ancient restored Wooden House is one of Amsterdam's oldest wooden houses and dates from 1528. The Begijnhof has a significant number of gables stones showing a strong Roman Catholic theme.

After the Protestant takeover of 1578, the Begijnhof was the only Roman Catholic institution in Amsterdam to be allowed to remain in existence. The houses were the Beguines' private property and therefore could not be confiscated. The Chapel was closed and lay empty for thirty years before being ceded to the English Presbyterian Church. In 1671, two dwellings opposite the Chapel were converted to the Church of the Saints John and Ursula, the patron saints of the Beguines. The church was not allowed to look like a church.

The most famous Beguine of the Begijnhof was sister Cornelia Arens, who died on 14 October 1654.

Rather than be laid to rest in the Chapel, which she considered being desecrated by Presbyterians, she chose to be buried in the gutter next to the church where her grave can still be seen.

On 23 May 1971, Sister Antonia, the last beguine passed away and was buried in the Sister's Grave in St. Barbara's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Amsterdam.

The Begijnhof was in desperate need of renovations and restorations. The houses were minuscule, 110 of them consisted of a single room and 25 had two rooms. In 1979 the renovation enlarged the houses to two or three rooms and since then, the female inhabitants limited to 105.

The Studio Apartment.

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Tucked away in the far corner of the farmyard was my studio apartment. 

In the quietness of the space, I experimented with inks and created a few illustrations. 

Haarlem is an artists’ paradise and old fashioned art shops, museums and inspiration close by. 

         

I found my inspiration by the fresh flowers which I bought on the market each week. 

The Van Gogh Museum a short bus ride away 

     

There were the visits by the hens and with it came some very fresh eggs. 

The Hen House

The Charming Dutch farmhouse with its traditional feature such as the Dutch Door, comes with its domestic animals. 

In the past, these animals were kept and fed for food. Today they roam freely as the garden pets, making their rounds in the yard to say good morning.

Next door is a nursery and the hothouses visible from my apartment. 

There is an abundance of flowers and flowering plants and it is used to decorate the farm. 

The henhouse is as quaint as the other structures and what caught my eye is the simplicity of decorating.

The henhouse is now used as a storage shed and the hens and a proud rooster sleeps with the pot bellied pigs, behind lace curtains.

A more prominent spot, next to the main farmhouse is a converted haystack. The closed-in unit with it lace-curtains is the home of two pot-bellied pigs. Upstairs is a small apartment built for the childrens sleepovers where they can watch TV, turn the music up, as the unit is not attached to the farm house. However, it is next door to my apartment. 

The overweight pigs, a boar and a gilt were in constant fighting mode. He would make advances towards her and she would bite him in return. In my understanding, that is a definite NO. Pigheaded as he is, he doesn’t take no for an answer and tries again followed by a pig squeal, as she bites him one more time.

There are several cats around, sleeping on the window sills when off duty, otherwise keeping the mouse population under control.  

With the guard dog stare, there are two small dogs around who can not decide between getting stroked or being on guard duty.

The Dutch Farm

We had rented out our flat in Vancouver to a Medical researcher as the apartment is conveniently located close to his work and to the Metro which goes straight to the airport. He has rented it for a year with an option to extend.

Therefore I have returned to the Netherlands to find a place to stay during the winters and breaks. Returning to the Netherlands, after not having lived there for 62 years, can be both surprising and challenging.

The Dutch also have their fondness for paperwork, much like the French but organized with efficiency and helpfulness.

I had found a suitable little place in a 1910 Dutch farm, not too far from Schiphol Airport. A little flat tugged in between the orchard and the hothouses and comes with a private patio which I share with two Calico cats who are competing for the sunny spot on the bench outside. 

The farmhouse is quaint and next-door is a cottage-looking building with large French doors and lace curtains. It is the residence of two pot-bellied pigs and some large Brahma hens and not without its proud rooster doing his job. 

There was a hen nesting in the yard and I was looking forward to some small chicks running around they never hatched. I also purchased some-assembly-required-IKEA-furniture for the making of a new home in the Netherlands. It was simple and they deliver to the small apartment. The farmer came with his toolbox and started to assemble the units so that I could have a bed to sleep on.

I had sent for my bicycle and other small belongings from the barge in France. After all, you need a bicycle to get around in the Netherlands. With spring being just around the corner and the tulip fields in range, I was ready for when they start blooming. I had somehow never managed to see the tulip fields and this would be the first time.

The Beach

About two years ago we rented out our loft and moved our belongings back onboard Zonder Zorg in Auxonne France.  After adjusting to the time change, I took several trains to get me to Haarlem, just outside Amsterdam the Netherlands.
               

                                                       The perfect place for some serious cheese shopping,

Liquorice tasting 

and some paperwork that needed tending too and I checked myself into a hostel for a week.

      On Sunday the sun appeared, the crocuses popped some more and the Dutch cycled to the beach.

I walked from Zandvoort to the Zuid Kennermeland National Park and a stroll through the dunes. 

The family oriented Dutch brought their family, of all ages, to the beach while others just enjoyed getting a head start on a sun tan. 

Along the beach, I enjoyed watching the activity from kite flying, horseback riding, fishing and the start of sand castles. 

The fish truck made its way onto the beach and once it stopped, the locals lined up as they have been for years. 

Well behaved dogs appeared from every direction with balls and sticks with some brave once taking a dip in the North Sea. One dog was burying its toy in a newly dug hole.

 I can only imagine what this beach looks like in the height of summer.