Beauty and the Vanitas

One of the images on special display right now at the Hermitage Amsterdam is this still life by Willem Claesz. Heda.

Willem Claesz. Heda
Breakfast with a Crab, 1648
oil on canvas
118 x 118 cm
The State Hermitage Museum

Signed and dated in the lower left, it's a fine example of the ontbijt painting, a word that means breakfast in Dutch.

Heda, a Haarlem native, specialized in this type of painting during the second half of the 17th century, an era that has come to be known as the Golden Age of Dutch still life paintings.

Ontbijt, pronounced "onge-bite," even today appears frequently on cafe menus throughout The Netherlands as a way of describing a breakfast meal.

Indeed a couple days ago I ordered an ontbijt at the Barista Cafe on Grote Houtstraat in Haarlem. It included an omelette with cheese and tomato plus two slices of bread, washed down with a double latte, American style.

Heda's ontbijt painting contains a careful study of several objects used by the Dutch merchant class in the 17th century.

These include, on the right, a roemer, or rounded beer glass with bumpy knobs near its base.  Apparently glass blowers placed the knobs near the bottom to keep the glass from slipping out of greasy hands.

Near the center of the composition sits a silver pot, which may have been used for tea but may also represent an early example of the chocolate pot. The finial on top of its lid is the best piece of evidence to support the latter theory, although the date of the painting argues against it as a representation of the chocolate pot, since the earliest references to drinking chocolate do not appear in Europe for another 15 years.

The tall flute glass near the center would be used for beer, another beverage which was undergoing tremendous change.

alewife woodcut, n.d.

Before the 17th century, beer was brewed mostly by women. Known as alewives, these women would brew and bake in the home with the grains harvested from the fields.

Brewing, and then selling the beer out of the home, provided women with a measure of independence and personal sovereignty. It could be said that there was agency in the economics.

Unfortunately, with increasingly globalized trade connections in the 17th century between Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, new pressures came to bear on the alewives. Specialized artisans in Haarlem, Delft and Gouda began brewing commercially for export. Essentially men took over the beer brewing industry when it began to promise mercantile opportunities in a capitalistic system.

Leaving aside the beer to return to the glass from which it was drunk, the viewer of Heda's still life should recognize that although the flute glass originated in Holland, the shape is modeled after the Venetian design known as Façon de Venise. Its use in Haarlem is another example of the marketplace of skills and ideas prevalent during Holland's Golden Age.

On the left side of the table, a half peeled lemon dangles over the edge. This -- along with the crab, olives and bread -- suggests the image is a vanitas. The vanitas painting is something akin to a visual morality tale. Its primary intent is to remind the wealthy that their riches are transient. 

A peeled lemon loses its freshness. The cooked crab quickly goes bad. The message, then, is to enjoy these items but to not take them for granted. Nothing lasts forever. Thus pleasure, and the wealth that brings it, are fleeting. 

The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento possesses a similar vanitas by Heda. Although undated, the Crocker suggests it is an early example of Heda's work, dating to about 1631. 

Willem Claesz. Heda (1594-1680)
Still Life,  n.d. (c. 1631)
Oil on panel
Crocker Art Museum

Here the viewer can see many of the same symbols as from the later Hermitage image. The roemer, the fish and the silver pot are all characteristic of a Dutch still life. 

Clearly Heda was working out the technique, although this Crocker vanitas has a stilted and clunky feel to it in comparison with the later Hermitage image. Yes, the white table carpet and flute glass appear in both images. And, yes, the background is similarly plain in both. 

But the dramatic use of light and dark in the Hermitage is missing here in the Crocker, and the objects in this earlier composition fail to achieve the balance Heda wrought later in life.

For example, in the Hermitage image the table carpet hangs down below the table while the flute glass pierces upwards above the silver pot to form an apex. This gives the composition depth and dimension, a believable structure which is missing in the Crocker. The only hint of compositional order in the Crocker comes from the implied triangle of light above the objects. 

The key dangling from a blue sash and the open-faced watch in the silver tray in the Crocker act to remind the viewer of the passage of time, similar to the peeled lemon in the Hermitage image, but the blue color fails to pop against the dark folds of the table carpet, thus lessening the meaning of the symbols and diluting the impact of the whole image.

Therefore, while the details in the Crocker image are masterful -- for example, the inlaid abalone on the knife handle and the reflections in the silver-- it is clearly the work of an artist not yet in his prime.

The Hermitage Museum and a Case of the Dead Russian

The Hermitage Amsterdam Museum is housed in a building on the east bank of the River Amstel in what was historically known as the Jewish quarter of the city.

Diaconie Oude Vrouwen Huys,
etching 1693
photo courtesy of Amsterdam Municipal Department
for the Preservation and Restoration of Historic
Buildings and Sites

The building dates to 1682 when it was originally known as Diaconie Oude Vrouwen Huys (Deanery Home for Old Women). Generally, a poor house such as this is known as a hofje.

For nearly two hundred years this hofje was one of the largest buildings in Amsterdam. As a poor house it was supported by the city through a fund first established in 1680 by a wealthy merchant named Barent Helleman.

The building was originally constructed by the architect Hans Jansz. van Petersom, and it housed hundreds of elderly women. In 1817, a new wing was added to include male residents. 

Hermitage Amsterdam entrance
photo courtesy of Fentener van Vlissigen

After walking through the lower red door in the modern entrance, the visitor enters a courtyard.

This courtyard was originally designed as a bleaching field to allow the women residents to lay out their linen, work which provided the hofje income to support the women.

Hermitage Amsterdam courtyard
photo courtesy of Ben ter Mull

In 2009, after a series of renovations, the building and grounds were transformed into a museum complex.

Its mission is to show the connections between the Dutch people and the Romanov family of Russia, including the trade relations between the cities of Amsterdam and St. Petersburg.

The current exhibit is called Dutch Masters of the Hermitage: Treasures of the Tzars which runs through May 2018. 

Some of the paintings in this exhibit were purchased, through agents, by Peter the Great and Catherine the Great of Russia in the 18th century. These include portraits by Rembrandt, Gerard van Honthorst and Thomas de Keyser. 

Since their purchase nearly three hundred years ago these images have never been displayed outside of Russia, thus making this exhibit a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the curators and its visitors.

Thomas de Keyser,
Portrait of Loef Vredericx as a Standard Bearer
1626
92 x 70 cm
Oil on panel, Mauritshuis

One of the images not held in Russia but included in this show was painted by Thomas de Keyser is a portrait of Loef Vredericx, an ensign bearing the banner of an Amsterdam shooting company. In other words, he was a member of a local militia in the 17th century.

Interestingly enough, this portrait was in the bedroom of Czar Paul I when he was assassinated on 23 March 1801. 

Apparently the portrait of Loef Vredericx was the only witness to the crime, which appears to have been a botched attempt at forcing Paul I's abdication. 

This attempt to force Paul I out of power was brought on by Russian aristocrats who felt threatened by Paul's policies which enabled the serfs. 

It would seem that Russian oligarchs have been meddling with political power for a very long time.

Amsterdam On My Mind

There are many ways to get to Amsterdam.

Three of them -- walking, biking or driving -- seem complicated. I might get lost; it would take hours; I have no car and, even if I did,  where would it be parked once we arrived in the city? Of the other two options -- taking the bus or train -- I have tried both recently with ease and satisfaction.

Yesterday was one of those times when I took the train. After walking to the train station, I caught the 11:34 from Haarlem and was on the street in Amsterdam before noon.

Public transport in the Netherlands is quite efficient. The trains are almost always on time and with the TripKey, I am able to use any bus, train, tram with the same pass, which charges to my credit card monthly. If you are planning on spending time using public transport in the Netherlands, I really recommend it.

Amsterdam is a bustling metropolis of about 850,000 people living in an 85 square mile radius. Add to that another 3.5 million tourists who visit each year and one can imagine the busy nature of the city. There are bikes and boats, buses and trams, all powered by people in constant motion.

Pot is legal here, and its smell lingers everywhere in the air. While standing in Dam Square last week with Hope, a young 20-something couple sitting on the steps nearby each rolled their own joints and lit up. Hope commented that she had never seen someone roll a joint before, which -- for a 15 year old -- is likely a tribute to the parenting she has received. In hindsight I definitely wish I could have said that at 15.

The Red Light District is ... interesting. Life size mannequins of women with penises stare out of lit display cases. What even is that? And, no, there are no photos.

Live women in other display cases promise their personal wares. One can wonder if these women -- or are they still children? -- are trafficked. Meanwhile and ironically, parents of young kids in strollers forge their way down crowded cobble streets. I'm worried about my 15 year old seeing this stuff as 2 year olds imbibe the visuals with their pacifiers. It feels like a bizarro world.

Clearly this was a wrong turn we made, so we hastily beat our retreat.

All over Amsterdam there are wandering young people, speaking German and English, Spanish and French.  I see a few Chinese tourists, too, but they are often with middle-aged parents. It's the Western kids who are are here for the sex and the drugs, experiences to gather as reminders of their youth. Walking past them on the sidewalks, I wonder about their quest.

You know them by their ubiquitous iPhone, used for direction in a round about city. If they are not looking down at it, their faces are turned up, staring far into the distance. Their gaze reminds me of someone who is not Present, but living for the future when they can tell their friends how they partied for a week in Amsterdam.

This vibe is not for me so I head for the Hermitage Amsterdam.