Space in the Netherlands


Traveling to Amsterdam, and the other places I got to visit in Europe, was a real privilege. After a few hours in an airplane, I was on a different continent, with the opportunity to experience different ideas about how to live. The journey was not that uncomfortable, given the circumstances of having to sit in the same place for hours on end.

Air travel is an amazing accomplishment, and an expensive one, financially and ecologically. I don’t want to take either cost too lightly.

In his lifetime, Rembrandt never left the Netherlands. He was encouraged to go to Italy to study art, but chose to stay at home and study from the prints and many objects that he collected.

When I was in Amsterdam, I took a trip down to Leiden, Rembrandt’s home town. It was only about a half hour train ride. Google Maps tells me that I could have walked it in 8 hours, 11 minutes.  In Leiden I walked around town for awhile, exploring. I stopped in an art supply store, and was disappointed at their selection, it was the same low quality stuff that I see in hobby and craft shops here in the US.

There was a stretch of waterway, with grassy banks, and houses along one side, that looked appealing. As I walked along I saw a man, neatly dressed in a white business shirt and slacks, sitting outside in his yard with a drink. I could be wrong, but I remember his yard being about half the size of the room that I am in now, which is 10 by 14 feet. He seemed to be enjoying his day. He waved hello, and I waved back.

Something that I liked very much about what I saw in the Netherlands was how people accustomed to not having much space manage to enjoy what they have. One evening in Amsterdam, on my canal stroll after the museum, I noticed a group of people around a table, which they had set up in the 8 feet or so between the street and the canal. They were elegantly dressed, and seemed to be enjoying their dinner, with glasses of wine, a white tablecloth on the table. When a man got up from his chair he had to bend over to avoid a wire that was leading to a construction area next to where they were sitting.

Someone once told me that the Netherlands was the most densely populated country on Earth, but a chart I just looked at online ranks it at #30, one spot denser than Israel. The US is #177, Sweden #191, Canada #225. The chart is here:


The drawing above is the first sketch I did from Rembrandt’s Night Watch. The painting is positioned prominently in the museum, in the center of its wall in a large room.  You see it in the distance, after you walk or take the elevator up to the second floor, turn the corner, and look through the big glass doors in the Great Hall.

The gallery was usually very crowded. On several occasions groups of school children were brought in, to view and discuss the painting. Sometimes they would take a group photo in front of the painting at the end of the presentation. When the crowd was thinner I would take the opportunity to sit down at one of the benches to rest as I drew. Otherwise I would stand, where I could see the part of the painting I was studying. Sometimes people would block my view for a minute, to take their selfie, or photo of a family member, in front of the painting. They didn’t stay too long. I think, or hope, at least, that they had a sense that the artwork on the wall behind them was a thing of importance.

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