Out of Bruges

Sacrifice.....

I am not a big fan of war.  I have not taken part in one, and I don't think I would be very good at it..... And now I have reached an age when should there be one in the vicinity I am more likely to be a civilian casualty than an active participant.

However, the history of mankind is written in blood, and it seems as though there has been more war than peace since homo 'sapiens' first hit his neanderthal cousin on the head.  

I grew up in the shadow of war.  Both my grandfathers were soldiers in the First World War.  I knew men who had been gassed in the trenches. Both my parents were in the RAF/WAAF in the Second World War.  I played in air raid shelters and on bomb sites.  I read story books and comics and watched films about war actions and heroes.  My school room had bound copies of magazines full of photographs of bombing raids and battles....  And later the whole school was marched to the Rex Cinema to watch Lawrence of Arabia when it came out (for more on this, please see https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2012/12/colonel-t-e-lawrence.html)

I have visited many scenes of battle and War Grave Commission cemeteries, but I had never seen the Menin Gate  and so, when I came across the possibility of visiting Ieper (Ypres) and Passchendaele and Tyne Cot with Riviera Travel, as an option on their Bruges for Solo Travellers trip, I thought I would go for it.....

But not (partly because of the timing) before I had made a quick sortie to Ghent, where I wanted to see the complete and recently restored van Eyck altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral.  

As Daniel Boffey explained in The Guardian in 2021, the Ghent Altarpiece (also known as the Polyptych of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb) has, during its near 600-year history, been nearly burned by rioting Calvinists, stolen by Napoleon for the Louvre in Paris, cut in half after falling into the hands of the King of Prussia, coveted by Hermann Göring and taken by Adolf Hitler before being rescued by a team of commando double-agents from an Austrian salt mine where it was destined to be blown apart with dynamite.

This work, completed in 1432 and one of the first ever oil paintings, is one of the great masterpieces of European art.  The central panel is dominated by the Lamb which represents Christ, and he is surrounded by angels and the faithful.

Blood flows from the Lamb into a chalice as a reference to the foundation of the Christian faith - the Messiah gives his life to save humankind.

But then, continuing my trip, to Passchendaele, where, from July to November 1917, almost 600,000 men shed their blood for the world to live in peace.....

The trouble is, at least this is what I felt, nothing can really convey the appalling discomfort of the trenches, let alone the noise, the filth, the agony of wounds or the pain of death. In the Passchendaele Museum, in a dark but completely dry and odourless reconstruction of a dugout, a man, who could have been my grandfather, sits on a toilet seat above a bucket. I am sorry, but this just doesn't begin to show the sacrifice each soldier made - even the ones who survived.

In a room upstairs in the chateau, students are told about the weapons used in the war to end all wars. These young people, even the teacher, are too young now to have known relations who took part in this slaughter. There is now a whole industry, an educational industry yes, but one that now profits from the exploitation of a ghastly memory. Are we better for it? Has the memory of the war to end all wars done anything to stop further wars?

New in 2024 is an Immersive Experience, where visitors are supposed to find themselves, according to the brochure, 'right in the middle of the landscape of 1917.'  To be honest, I think the final five minutes of Blackadder goes forth is more effective.....

Don't misunderstand me. Please. I don't think it wrong to remember the dead. I don't think it wrong to have museums that collect memorabilia of bygone times. But I find myself strangely unemotional as I pass through these chambers.

 

It is fittingly grey and wet in Ieper (Ypres).  The Menin Gate is under wraps, itself the victim of time and the weather.  The glorious Cloth Hall and Belfry have been miraculously reconstructed after the almost total destruction of this town in the war (to end all wars).  Inside the 'In Flanders Fields Museum' (Now more than ever, the brochure tells us) 'you can explore the Great War through authentic artefacts, videos,, projections, and personal stories.  You'll journey into the memories of the First World War.  The past has never been so close.....'

I wonder. It is a more effective museum (in my opinion) than that at Passchendaele, and some of the technology (for example videos of actors dressed as soldiers explaining such things as the use of gas, with subtitles in four languages) is impressive. 

But in nearby St Martin's Cathedral (also a complete reconstruction) I find this picture which tells an earlier story of death and destruction, and which also brings the past nearer:

The Siege of Ypres in 1383. Joris Liebaert, 1657. 

Poor old Ypres. Attacked by the Bishop of Norwich and his men in 1383, it managed to resist the siege, but, according to Wikipedia, Ypres never really recovered. The entire hinterland of the city had been destroyed and trade with England was seriously compromised.  Over the centuries the place was conquered by the French and later given to the Hapsburgs.  Then, in 1914, it stood in the way of the Germans and the Schlieffen Plan, so it got razed to the ground.

As I said, the history of man is written in blood, and perhaps the worst thing is that it is usually the blood of the poor that is sacrificed so that the rich get richer.... Think Alfred Nobel. Think Lord Armstrong (of Cragside). Think British Aerospace (the largest defence contractor in Europe).

Tyne Cot Cemetery
(the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world in terms of burials)

Please don't misunderstand me. I mean no disrespect. The commemoration of war and its dead probably is a good thing, even though the human race still seems intent on destroying itself. Perhaps Putin and Trump et al should spend some time at Tyne Cot and Ypres (though I suspect they would shrug and dismiss the experience on some pretext or other)?

However desensitised we have become it is still inevitably moving to stand amongst the graves, and to hear the recital of names and ages in the visitor centre. 

I think of my grandfathers, and think of their suffering, their sacrifice. My father's father was about thirty when he, a schoolmaster, joined up. My mother's father would have been about the same age but had previously served in the Boer War. The Great War (to end all wars) didn't kill either of them, but it marked them, and they sacrificed a part of their lives, their peace, for all of us.

And there is no escape. On our return to Brugge I pass a plaque on the wall near our hotel

Here in this crypt

rest the ashes of

political prisoners

from the Dachau concentration camp

When will we ever learn?

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

*   *    *    *    *

This piece is dedicated to all those everywhere who were sacrificed in war for others.

If you found this at all interesting, the following link will take you to a memoir I wrote in remembrance of my paternal grandfather who was wounded in the First World War but who died at the age of 86 with a piece of shrapnel still embedded in his arm:

https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2012/11/remembrance.html

I also recommend the following:

Edmund Blunden: Undertones of War

Robert Graves: Goodbye to All That

Siegfried Sassoon: Selected Poems 

R C Sherriff: Journey's End

And 

King and Country, a film directed by Joseph Losey, with Dirk Bogarde and Tom Courtenay 

Back in Bruges

How time passes!

In May 2017 I briefly visited Brugge (Bruges) and subsequently posted this piece: https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2017/05/flanders-2.html, so, if you like you can read that one and save yourself the effort of looking at this one.....

It is alarming how quickly time passes (perhaps especially as you get older?)  It doesn't seem that long ago..... 

But perhaps what is even more astonishing is that Martin McDonagh's film In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes, was made in 2008..... Look! There's trigger-happy Harry running by the fish market:

It's still a great film, if you like dark humour and a fair amount of violence, though the locals apparently didn't appreciate it, possibly because the last lines go like this:

Poor Ray.  Not so sensitive as his fellow killer Ken.

But I like Brugge, and wouldn't be averse to spending more time there.....

On this occasion I had booked myself on a short 'Bruges for solo travellers' trip with Riviera Travel.  I booked it some months ago as I anticipated I might need a few days respite from caring for Amanda.  However, time passes, as do we, and now she has gone, I just need a break.

But it didn't start well....  Thanks to an inconvenient incident on a bridge somewhere between Baldock and Letchworth my train to London decided to dump us all in Welwyn Garden City, so I missed my Eurostar to Lille and the convenience of a coach from there to the hotel in Brugge.  I nearly gave up then, but with a little luck and a following wind I finally caught up with my group, ably managed by Rosey, in a restaurant near the Minnewater.  A little frazzled, but hungry, and thirsty, and glad of the company.

Not surprisingly, the town hasn't changed much since my last visit.  The old centre is almost too perfect (which is why Ray didn't like it) - a kind of Medieval Disney World which attracts hordes of tourists..... like me.  

The canals meander past antique buildings and grand palaces, all of which are clean and free of graffiti.  The only bit of litter I saw was a plastic bag floating on a chill wind, almost certainly aiming to deposit itself in a bin somewhere out of a sense of civic duty.....

It is spring, and the Begijnhof is carpeted with daffodils:

But the weather is changeable, and though sharp streams of sunshine light the Kruispoort:

Dark clouds loom above a rainbow beyond the windmills:

And the reflections of Jan van Eyck's statue shimmer on the cobbles:

But if you allow for the inundation of visitors, it is still a tranquil place and the mellow brickwork and casual chintz curtains make for a restful effect:

While the views from the Belfort (something Ken got too close to) give you a sense of the lay-out of the closely worked streets and rising spires of the old town:

And in the shelter of the Sint-Janshospitaal there is still an unrivalled collection of works by Hans Memling, which delighted me on my earlier visit.  The St Ursula Shrine (1489) is exquisite:

As is the St John Altarpiece (1479) with St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist standing behind the Virgin and child and Saints Catherine and Barbara seated aside. Despite the scenes of torture and execution all around the central picture is one of supreme tranquility:

While in contrast the pale horse of death emerges from the mouth of hell on the right hand panel:

It all happens in Bruges!  In the Markt young sibyls possibly foretell the second coming (or something worse?)

While in the garden of Cafe Vlissinghe the elders hone their skills at Krulbollen (or Curve Ball - sometimes called Rolle Bolle):

The inside of this bar, barely changed since 1515, is warm and relaxed, and an eponymous beer goes down exceedingly well, carefully served by Grietje while Bruno cooks up Vissoep (fish soup) in the kitchen:

It is getting dark when I leave:

By now the day trippers have gone back to their cruise ships, while those who remain are crowding the bars and restaurants around the centre.  The sky fades from deep blue:

To inky black:

Rain begins to fall again and I lose myself in the dark lanes of the city:

Walking by the canals and basins:

Over bridges from which the town gets its name:

Until I regain the open space of the Markt and the great Belfry that rises above the Cloth Hall.  It is stunning and despite Ray (Colin Farrell)'s dying words at the end of In Bruges, if this is Hell, then give me eternity any day......

Ay Marieke, Marieke

Le soir souvent

Entre les tours

De Bruges et Gand

Ay Marieke, Marieke

Tous les étangs

M'ouvrent leurs bras

De Bruges à Gand

Jacques Brel

[For Marieke please substitute Amanda.....]

In the gallery

 The Eyes have it......

    or.... The sign of a good painting.....

I still revere Peter Cook, even though a quarter century has passed since his fatal gastrointestinal haemorrhage at the age of 57.... And to this day I cannot enter an art gallery without thinking of Pete and Dud eating their sandwiches in front of Cezanne's Les Grandes Baigneuses [Eleven female figures repose in an imaginary landscape bordered by trees.....] The painting was purchased in 1964 with a special grant and the aid of the Max Rayne Foundation.  As Pete tells Dud in their In the Gallery sketch, The Big Bathers (Pete's translation of the painting's title) cost almost as much as Tottenham Hotspur. About fifty thousand pounds a body - you could get the real nude lady for that price.....

Anyway, the art critic in Pete lectures Dud in what makes a good painting.  That's the sign of a good painting - if the eyes follow you round the room, it's a good painting.  If they don't, it isn't.

Dud queries how that works with the Big Bathers, and Pete explains that if they are facing away, then the sign of a good painting is if the bottoms follow you around the room.  And they test the theory.....

In these days of up-lock and anti-social distance, I have been thrilled to revisit some galleries, and to test Peter Cook's perspicacity.  I concentrated on the eyes of certain famous paintings (no, not the bottoms.  I have no place for drifting bits of gauze in my life.....) And I was alarmed to find that not all our treasured masterworks are looking the same way....

Take this group of Four Poor Clares, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, pictured around 1320-25 from the Chapter House of the Sienese church of San Francesco. They certainly don't seem to be following me.....

And this Virgin and Child, by Ambrogio Bergognone (c.1488-90) appears to be watching something while her boy is distracted by something else.... (and neither seem interested in the Carthusian monks behind  them, building the Charterhouse at Pavia.....)

My curiosity is raised.  Who/what are these icons gazing at?  What attracts their attention?  And why won't their eyes follow me?  Here is Giovanni Bellini's Doge Leonardo Loredan (1501-2) [looking uncannily like Pier Paolo Pasolini by the way].  His dead eyes seem to be deliberately avoiding the artist's attention.  Very cinematic (never look at the camera....)

But Albrecht Dürer's father (1497) would appear to have an eye on his son?  Or is he looking past him?  I hate to say this, but there's a touch of strabismus in the gaze.....

In Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait (1434) it could be that Giovanni Arnolfini, a wealthy Italian merchant resident in Bruges, is contemplating his wife's bump, and that she is dreaming of a happy family.  But she could be looking at her husband's hand and thinking she would rather their guests (in the mirror) hadn't got off the bus.  Either way, they sure ain't looking at us.....

Rembrandt, one of my all time faves (up there with Peter Cook), could play tricks with the light, and his Belshazzar's Feast (c 1636-8) shows us shock and awe as the divine hand writes on the wall (Thou are weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.....  something of a Johnsonian nightmare, perhaps?) These eyes are never going to follow us around the room......

But when he comes to paint himself, as he did many times (he painted himself before the mirror at least forty times, etched himself 31 times and made a handful of drawn self-portraits); he is not shy.  Rembrandt van Rijn will stare us down, daring us to eyeball him back, as in this example from 1637.

His son, Titus, looks a little more abashed when painted in 1658, but he was his father's agent and factotum, and things weren't going well at the time (though they were worse ten years later when Titus died of the plague.)

There's a distinct family likeness visible in this self-portrait at the age of 63 (the year after Titus's death).  But Rembrandt is not finished.  He looks at the viewer with the hint of a smile; there's life in the old dog yet, and these eyes will not only follow you around the room, they will haunt you all the way home.....

I wander the great Galleries of London, almost alone with these darkening faces.  I almost see the paintings reacting to each other in their suspension.  

Edouard Manet's The Execution of Maximilian (1883) not surprisingly upsets the woman in pink sitting with her cat within earshot..... Her expression reminds me of someone on holiday who has just realised the people in the chalet next to her have a child with ADHD.....

And I am interested to see the interaction of others with the windows on the walls. What does this little daughter think about Georges Seurat's Bathers at Asnières (1883 - 4)?  Does she like the little red dog in the foreground?  Or does she wonder why these boys are swimming in a river so close to the smelly chimneys in the background?  Or does she wonder why no one is looking her way?

Meanwhile, other solitary browsers seem to be checking Pete's other thesis.  The Rokeby Venus [The Toilet of Venus, 1647 - 51] (Diego Velasquez's only surviving nude) has the kind of bottom that might just follow you....  (though probably only if you had a Porsche and a flat in Knightsbridge....)

Amidst all this, despite the solemnity of great art, one picture stands out.  The eyes of Frans Hals's Laughing Cavalier (1624) do definitely follow you around.  He's a confident 26 year old and he poses as a man of some vitality.  He is proud to be seen, and will watch every watcher with a view to perhaps meeting up later when the gallery closes.  

As Dud says to Pete: That's the thing about the laughing cavalier - at least he has a giggle......

In risu veritas.....

With thanks to The National Gallery and The Wallace Collection for allowing me to wander freely amongst these treasures and to take photographs (I promise I didn't take any of the pictures....) I didn't use flash and I won't benefit in any way from this blog.....