And she remembered Mom quoting Vincent’s own words to London and her sister as they’d looked at this very painting.
“I want to give the wretched a brotherly message.”
Helga turned and looked at London with surprise.
“Oh, dear,” London said, blushing. “I hadn’t meant to say that aloud.”
But Helga smiled with apparent approval.
“I’m glad you did,” she said. “Sending a brotherly message was what Vincent was trying to do with all his work. He was trying to bring comfort to humanity. Before he became a painter, he actually tried preaching and missionary work. That didn’t work out very well. He wound up giving everything he had to the poor! He eventually realized that he could achieve his spiritual goals through art.”
Helga stepped away from the painting and asked the group, “Can I answer any questions?”
“Yeah,” Honey said. “Did Van Gogh ever get to see any of his paintings exhibited right here in this museum?”
“Oh, no, far from it,” Helga said. “He was virtually unknown all his life. Out of some 800 paintings and 700 drawings, he only managed to sell one artwork. Of course, today he is one of the most famous artists who ever lived. Some of his works sell for millions of dollars.”
Honey’s husband Gus raised his hand and asked, “Is it true he cut off his ear?”
She must get asked this a lot, London thought.
“Well, that’s how the story goes, isn’t it?” Helga said in a patient tone. “He supposedly got into an argument with his friend, the painter Paul Gauguin, and tried to attack him with a razor. When Gauguin got away from him, he cut off most of his own left ear and gave it to a young woman in a brothel. That’s what you’ve always heard, isn’t it?”
“Pretty much,” Gus said.
“It probably didn’t happen quite like that,” Helga said. “In 2008 a pair of art researchers went through police records. They came to the conclusion that Gauguin himself probably attacked Van Gogh with a sword and caused the injury. Whatever else happened between the two men that day, it ended their friendship.”
Helga added, “There are all sorts of legends about Van Gogh. You should be careful what you believe about him. But what is true is that he was a brilliant and troubled soul. He was very lonely, and he may have suffered from epilepsy or schizophrenia or both. It’s also true that he wound up taking his own life—a tragic end for a man who brought so much beauty into the world.”
Then Helga smiled and said, “Let’s be on our way, shall we? There is much more to see.”
As the group started following Helga out of the exhibition hall, London looked back and noticed that one passenger was lagging behind. It was Cyrus Bannister, and he was peering closely at a painting of tulips. In fact, his nose was almost up against the canvas.
“Are you coming?” London asked.
Cyrus stepped back from the painting with a startled look.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “Absolutely.”
As London and Cyrus followed after the group, London asked him, “Did you notice something interesting about that painting?”
“No,” Cyrus said. “Nothing interesting.”
He cleared his throat and added, “Except, of course, that it’s a masterpiece.”
Something about Cyrus’s tone suggested to London that he wasn’t telling her everything he was thinking. Always dark-clad and typically rather dour, Cyrus was a peculiar sort of man, and not always an especially pleasant one. He did, however, seem to be knowledgeable about many things, ranging from classical music to dog training.
She couldn’t help but wonder what had caught his attention.
As they continued on their way, Helga approached London and asked, “How much time do you still have for your tour?”
London looked at her watch and said, “Enough time to visit the Hall of Honor and Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, I think. Oh, and to spend a little time in the gift shop.”
“The gift shop is right on our way,” Helga said.
The group seemed enthusiastic as Helga led them inside the little shop. It had a charming variety of items, including tote bags, scarves, jewelry, greeting cards, ceramic vases and plant holders, t-shirts, and souvenir mugs. There were even some little “action figures” of artists like Van Gogh and Rembrandt, and crochet dolls representing characters that appeared in some of the museum’s great artworks.
London was pleased to see smiles on the passengers’ faces as they browsed.
But then something worrisome caught her eye.
Letitia Hartzer was fingering a souvenir pen shaped and painted like one of the ceramic vases on display in the room where they’d last been. The pen was attached by a little chain to an equally decorative base.
And Letitia’s interest seemed to be more than that of an innocent buyer.
Oh, no, London thought. Not this again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
London held her breath anxiously.
Letitia Hartzer was one of her favorite passengers, but the woman had a personality flaw that had led to trouble in the past.
She was a small-scale kleptomaniac.
Early in the tour, London had found Letitia’s stateroom virtually decorated with stolen items, mostly inexpensive little knickknacks. London had made sure that all those items were returned to their rightful owners and Letitia had also promised that she would never steal anything again.
But now there she was, fingering just the kind of pretty object that she had shoplifted at earlier stops on their tour and even purloined from the Nachtmusik itself.
Should I stop her right now? London wondered.
Maybe not, she told herself.
She resisted the urge to pounce. Of course, letting Letitia actually steal something was out of the question. But it did look like the woman was at the very least struggling with her temptation.
As London stood there wavering, Letitia picked the pen up by the base. For a moment, she seemed to be holding her own breath. Then she smiled. And in a completely non-furtive manner, she carried the pen over to the cashier and properly bought it.
While she was paying for her pen, Leticia caught London’s gaze and her smile widened.
As the group left the gift shop, London patted Letitia on the back and whispered to her.
“You did good just now.”
Letitia laughed quietly.
“Thanks,” she said. “It’s not a bad idea to keep an eye on me, though.”
“I’ll keep doing that,” London said.
She turned her attention back to the docent who was leading their tour of the Rijksmuseum. Helga ushered the group up a flight of stairs into a magnificent hall with a high arched roof. The walls were covered with elaborate decorations and murals, and sunlight streamed in through grand stained-glass windows.
“This is the Great Hall,” Helga explained. “The paintings and the windows show scenes from Dutch history and portraits of Dutch artists, writers, and architects.”
As the group approached a set of glass doors, Helga paused and spoke in a reverent tone.
“I want you to prepare to see one of the greatest exhibit halls in the world—the Rijksmuseum’s Gallery of Honor. Here you will see a collection of paintings from the 17th century, the Dutch Golden Age, when Amsterdam was one of the world’s busiest and most important centers of trade, learning, philosophy, art, and military power.”
Helga opened a door, and the group entered a stunning hallway flanked by alcoves filled with masterpieces. At the far end of the hall was a little room with walls of glass.
Although London was sure that she had been here long ago with her sister and her parents, this didn’t look at all familiar to her.
Helga explained, “Our most famous painting by possibly the most famous of all artists—Rembrandt van Rijn’s monumental The Night Watch—is undergoing restoration. You will still be able to get a look at it, but it’s important to get a whole sense of 17th-century Dutch art before you take in that
amazing picture. Let’s look at some of the smaller masterworks all around us.”
The group began to visit alcove after alcove, viewing works by such masters as Jan Steen and Frans Hals. Two works by Johannes Vermeer, a milkmaid pouring milk into a bowl and a pregnant woman reading a letter, created an amazing feeling of real sunlight.
Helga explained as they went, “As you can see, these aren’t images of kings and queens and aristocrats, nor of mythological heroes. In the 17th century, the Dutch middle class was gaining wealth and power. Many of these paintings were bought by people who weren’t interested in the exotic or the noble. They were more interested in life as it was going on around them.”
Helga drew the group’s attention to a painting of food on a table.
“You can even learn about how Dutch people ate from paintings like this one—Still Life with Turkey Pie by Pieter Claeas. Here the painter celebrates the bounty of a Dutch dinner table with its oysters, grapes, olives, and a turkey. The turkey pie itself is enough to tell you that the family who ate at this table was quite wealthy. The pie would have been spiced with cinnamon, mace, cloves, and ginger—spices from the east that were as dear in their way as gold.”
London was struck by the painting’s extreme realism, more vivid than any photograph could be.
Helga pointed out one detail, “Do you see this lemon, with a spiraling rind that has been carefully peeled away? This is a common image in Dutch still lifes—a symbolic reminder of how life is fleeting and temporary. With this, the artist reminded this painting’s owners to be humble.”
Fleeting and temporary, London thought.
The partially peeled lemon reminded her of Mom, and of a happy and adventurous days long gone.
Moving on to a different alcove Helga said, “Sometimes Dutch painters celebrated things that might strike us as extremely ordinary and mundane.” Pointing to a canvas, she added, “For example, take a close look at this picture by Pieter de Hooch. What do you see there?”
London and the others bunched in around the painting, which showed the interior of a perfectly ordinary home of the time.
“I see a woman at home holding a little girl in her arms,” Agnes Shick said. “The girl is her daughter, I guess.”
“I see a little family dog,” Bryce said.
Others noted paintings on the walls, pillows on a cubbyhole bed, plain drapes, a laundry basket, drab wallpaper, sunlight pouring in through an open window with a wooden shutter, and a laundry basket.
“And that looks like a wooden chair,” Gus said, “except it there’s no real seat to it.”
Cyrus Bannister let out a knowing laugh.
“That’s because it’s actually a little indoor toilet,” Cyrus said.
“That’s right,” Helga said with a chuckle. “A kakstoel, it was called in Dutch back then. Imagine, putting a bathroom seat in a painting like this! No subject was too ordinary or every-day or mundane for the people who bought this painting. But what about the woman and the little girl. What do you think they’re doing, exactly?”
London and the others looked more closely at the seated woman, whose daughter’s face was snuggled against her side.
“She’s doing something with her daughter’s hair,” Letitia observed.
“Braiding it maybe?” Audrey suggested.
Honey let out a squeal of realization.
“Oh, I know what she’s doing! She’s checking her daughter’s hair for lice!”
The others let out exclamations of surprise.
“That’s right,” Helga said. “Which explains the painting’s title—A Mother’s Duty.”
Although London was having trouble remembering what she might have seen here before, she felt a flash of déjà vu as they came in sight of Rembrandt’s famous—and enormous—Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild. That painting showed six black-clad, prosperous Dutch businessmen gathered closely together around a table.
When she, Mom, and Tia had seen this painting years ago, London had felt a childish urge to apologize to those men.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she’d felt like saying. “I can see you’re busy.”
London got the same uncanny feeling right now. The men had been poring over a record book, but their gaze appeared to have suddenly turned to the viewer, as if they’d been interrupted in their work.
Helga said, “I mentioned a while ago that Van Gogh came to this museum to view great paintings, especially by Rembrandt. He admired this one very much.”
Cyrus Bannister quietly interrupted in a knowledgeable voice.
“But this one wasn’t Van Gogh’s favorite Rembrandt.”
Helga looked a bit surprised by Cyrus’s comment, but not the least bit displeased.
“You are quite correct,” she said to him. “Let’s go look at his favorite right now.”
They walked a short distance to see a painting of a man and a young woman rendered in bright, glowing colors.
Helga said, “In Van Gogh’s day, this painting was known as The Jewish Bride. Scholars hadn’t yet figured out that the man and the woman were characters from the Bible—the patriarch Isaac and his wife Rebecca. Even so, the painting had a tremendous effect on Van Gogh.”
Smiling at Cyrus, Helga added, “Would you care to elaborate, sir? You seem to have some knowledge of this work.”
Cyrus nodded and said, “Vincent wrote about this painting in a letter to his brother Theo. He called it an ‘intimate, infinitely sympathetic picture, painted with a glowing hand.’ He said that this artwork proved Rembrandt to be more than just a painter. He could actually ‘make poetry’ out of images.”
Helga nodded, obviously rather impressed, then spoke again to everybody.
“I’m sure you all remember Van Gogh’s thick brushstrokes, his heavy use of paint. He learned at least some of that technique from this painting.” Pointing to the couple’s clothing, she said, “You can see that Rembrandt did much the same thing right here with layers of paint.”
Cyrus nodded again and said, “I believe Rembrandt deliberately scratched the thick globs of paint with the butt end of his paintbrush to achieve such a glowing effect.”
“You are quite correct, sir,” Helga said. “And now I believe we are ready to see the greatest work in this hall full of masterpieces. Come with me to the Night Watch Gallery. It will be a fitting way to end your tour.”
As the group continued on their way, London looked at Cyrus Bannister curiously. His expression, as usual, was hard to read. She’d already been aware that he knew a lot about art. But now she realized something more.
He can actually quote Van Gogh by heart.
Which made London think about that strange moment a little while ago, when she’d found him staring at the Van Gogh painting of tulips, with his nose almost up against the canvas.
When she’d asked him if he’d noticed something interesting, he’d said that he hadn’t.
“Except, of course, that it’s a masterpiece.”
Now London wondered again …
What wasn’t he telling me?
CHAPTER TWELVE
London was still watching Cyrus Bannister closely as the group walked toward the far end of the Gallery of Honor. It was clear that he knew a lot more than she did about fine art. And for a man who exhibited disdain for so many matters, he did seem unusually interested in the works they were seeing now. Even so, his stern demeanor gave her no clue to his feelings about any of them, not even the huge painting inside an enormous glass enclosure in front of them. Was his interest strictly intellectual?
With no answers to her questions, London turned her own attention to the grand painting inside that glass room. Rembrandt’s The Night Watch was a staggering sight, peopled with 17th-century characters arranged in a gigantic composition. Many of the characters were carrying muskets, swords, and other weapons.
As London took in the spectacle, she could almost hear a voice speaking to her.
“You mustn’t touch, sweetie.”
&n
bsp; It was what Mom had said when London had first seen this masterwork, standing right in front of it and reaching toward it with her little fingers.
London remembered how startled she’d been by those words. She actually hadn’t meant to touch the painting. It was more as though she’d felt as though she could walk into the painting, into a wonderful world of exciting characters that stretched out far beyond her reach.
Of course, she wasn’t nearly as close to the painting right now, and there was a sheet of glass separating her from it. Three people were inside the glass enclosure. Two women and a man, all wearing black, uniform-like jackets were mounted on a hydraulic platform that reminded London of scaffolding used by window washers on skyscrapers. At the moment, they were operating what looked like some kind of a high-tech digital scanning device while looking at images in a computer monitor.
London said to Helga, “I’d heard that The Night Watch was being restored. I hadn’t realized the restoration was still going on.”
“Oh, it will keep going on for years,” Helga said. “We call it ‘Operation Night Watch,’ and it’s the most ambitious restoration and research project ever carried out on this masterpiece. Rather than keep the painting out of view, the museum decided to invite the public to witness the whole process from beginning to end. It is even being livestreamed, so people all over the world can watch it in real time.”
Helga said to the group, “The Night Watch is the pride of the Rijksmuseum. It was completed by Rembrandt in 1642 after three years of work. It was commissioned by a company of Kloveniers—civic militia guards—for a sort of group portrait. Thirty-four characters wound up in the painting, as you can see.”
Pointing through the glass, Helga continued.
“It is a painting of many mysteries, legends, and misunderstandings. For one thing, Rembrandt never called it The Night Watch. It was named that by mistake. By the end of the 18th century, the varnish on its surface darkened so that the painting looked like a night scene. It was only after the varnish was removed during a restoration in 1946 did anyone realize the truth. Even though the background is dark, you can see that the figures in the foreground are lit by the daylight sun. But the name The Night Watch stuck, and we still call it that today.”
Misfortune (and Gouda) Page 8