Belgium 2017 - Antwerp: Old Town - Part 2

After spending the morning in the Museum Mayer van den Bergh and Peter Paul Rubens House, we headed towards Antwerp's historic city centre.  Our tour of the "Old Town" took us through the shopping street Eiermarkt, into the square where the Cathedral of Our Lady resides, and then to the Grote Markt Square where the City Hall is found.  It was confusing trying to figure out the names of the many squares in Antwerp.  For example, the "square" (actually more of an oval) where the Cathedral is located is bound by the streets Groenplaats, Jan Blomstraat, Blauwmoezelstraat, Ljinwaadmarkt, and Sint-Pieterstraat.  The Cathedral has an address of 21 Groenplaats, yet it is not in Groenplaats Square, which is actually the one south of the Cathedral and features the sculpture of Rubens.  Despite performing Internet searches, I could not figure out what the square containing the Cathedral is called?  Recently I asked my home swap host and it turns out that the square is called Handschoenmarkt (Glove Market).  This doesn’t make sense to me since it is not even one of the streets surrounding the Cathedral, but rather the street just west of the enclosure.   At any rate, the Cathedral was easy to find, since at 123 metres, its tallest spire towered above all the other buildings in the area and could be seen from blocks away.

The Cathedral of Our Lady is the largest Gothic Church in the “Low Countries” (Netherlands, Luxembourg,  and Belgium), but took so long to be built, between 1352 to 1521, that its architecture and artwork reflect elements of Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo styles as well.  Based on the art found in the Cathedral, it is clear that the church is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the Lady of Antwerp.  The Carrara marble sculpture of a standing Madonna holding baby Jesus is obscurely attributed to the “Master of the Marble Madonnas”.  A 16th Century “Devotional” sculpture of Mary and Jesus has them dressed as royalty with a crown and bejewelled gold sceptor.  The 17th Century painting of the “Assumption of the Virgin” by Peter Paul Rubens adorns the high altar.  Rubens created three other works that hang in the Cathedral, including a triptych depicting the “Raising of the Cross”.  This painting has so much similarity to Rubens'  “Massacre of the Innocents” in terms of the muscle tone of the men and the depiction of the babies, that it is easy to recognize “Raising of the Cross” as one of his works.
 

This beautiful cathedral has several magnificent examples of intricate woodwork and carvings.  The 19^th Century St. Joseph retable consists of finely carved sculptures depicting Saint Joseph during 7 episodes of his life.  The incredible oak pulpit created in 1713 by Michiel van der Voort features banisters in the form of tree branches, twigs and roots as well as carvings of a parrot, crane and owl as well as other animals and lush vegetation.  These elements reflect the importance of nature as a source of inspiration for the faithful.  At the base, four female figures represent the continents of Europe, Asian, America and Africa, implying that the word of God was to be spread across what was then known as the world.  Along with Guillielmus Kerricx, Michiel van der Voort also made three groups of oak confessionals that feature 24 life-sized figures depicting the 12 apostles, and 12 women who represent virtues such as Contrition, Enlightenment, Conscience, Divine Mercy, Strength and Sorrow.

I found some of the art work in the Cathedral to be surprising and a bit amusing.  There is the tomb of Bishop Marius Ambrosius Capello (1597-1676), which is topped by a marble sculpture of the beloved clergyman posed in a reclining position.   He is supposed to be “resting on his elbow with his hands folded in prayer” but to my non-religious eyes, it seems like he is preening like the subject of an odalisque painting.  Then there is the painting of the corpse dressed in long dark robes rising out of a coffin that caused Rich to exclaim “It's Dracula!” when he first saw it.  Finally, there is the bronze sculpture called “The Man that Bears the Cross” that looks like it is painted metallic-gold.  Created by Jan Fabre in 2015, it is meant to encourage viewers to keep a spiritual equilibrium.  When we first glimpsed it from afar, I thought it was a sculpture of the comics character TinTin.  Then upon closer inspection, the man in the shiny gold with slicked-back hair reminded me of Elvis Presley.  I don't suppose either of these impressions were what the artist was intending to convey.

In the cobblestone square surrounding the Cathedral of Our Lady, a seemingly whimsical white marble sculpture is found on the ground.  It depicts a boy sleeping with his dog, covered by a blanket that is very cleverly designed as an extension of the cobblestone.  Inspecting the sculpture more closely, we discovered that this is a rendering of Nello and Patrasche, the boy and dog described in a 1872 English novel called “A Dog of Flanders” which became popular in Belgium when it was translated to Dutch and adapted into a story in the Belgian comic book series “Suske en Wiske”.  The original story turns out to be quite sad.  Nello, a little Belgian orphan boy living with his grandfather, adopts a severely mistreated dog and names him Patrasche.  Nello and Patrasche become inseparable companions.  Nello dreams of becoming a great painter like his hero Peter Paul Rubens.  After his grandfather dies, Nello and Patrashe travel to Antwerp to see Ruben’s masterpieces hanging within the Cathedral.  With no money for the admission, they sneak into the church late at night on Christmas Eve and are found the next morning, huddled together, frozen to death in front of Ruben’s triptych.  The Dog of Flanders has been adapted multiple times into movies in the U.K., USA, Japan and Korea, although I’m sure some of the versions give it a happier ending.  The location of the sculpture in front of the Cathedral is quite appropriate and touching given the premise and setting of the story.  The sculpture, a symbol of everlasting friendship, was donated in 2016 to Antwerp by the people of China for appreciation of Antwerp’s diamond industry.  I guess the Chinese buy a lot of diamonds.

Our next stop was the “Grote Markt” (“Grand Place”), which is the central square where the Antwerp City Hall (“Stadhuis”) is located.  Built in the 1560s, the Renaissance building incorporates both French and Italian influences.  In front of the City Hall sits the “Brabo Fountain” created by sculptor Jeff Lambeaux in 1886.  It depicts the folklore of the mythical Roman soldier Silvius Brabo who fought a giant named Druon Antigoon who was terrorizing the townspeople.  Brabo cuts off the giant’s hand and throws it into the river.  This gave Antwerp its name in Dutch of “hand werpen”, meaning “hand throwing”.  Also residing in the Grote Markt is a series of 16th Century guild houses where associations of craftsmen met to discuss policies and trade secrets.  Of note is the Sint-Joris Guild of the Archers, which has a gold statue at its pinnacle depicting the legend of Saint George on his horse fighting the dragon

Nearing the end of a very long day, we were planning on buying some deli food to take back to our home swap for dinner.  This was until we passed the restaurant “Elfde Gebod” which advertised the “Best Mussels in Town”.  But this is not what lured us, since we had seen similar declarations all over Antwerp.  What intrigued us was the tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top religious décor that graced the restaurant (pun intended).  Situated just across from the Our Lady Cathedral, the eatery is overflowing with statues of the Virgin Mary, saints, angels, as well as pulpits and other religious iconography.

We decided to try the mussels in white wine sauce with frites, checking off another Belgian dining experience from our wish list.   The mussels were small and there was not much sauce until you dug to the very bottom.  These were by no means the best mussels that we have ever eaten, and not even the best ones that we had during our trip.  But it was our first mussels experience in Belgium, and the kitschy setting was just so much fun that it made up for it.  As an appetizer we ordered the “bitterballen”, a deep-fried battered meat croquette that we enjoyed often in Amsterdam.  Continuing our tradition of trying local Belgian beers, Rich ordered a glass of the St. Bernardus which is a dark ale brewed in Watou, Belgium and was our first attempt at drinking a “Trappist beer”, brewed by monks in Trappist monasteries.  It tickled our funny bone to be drinking beer under the watchful eyes of these statues.  Elfde Gebod translates to “Eleventh Commandment” and one can only imagine what that sacrilegious commandment would be in this establishment?

On our way home, we looked for a few more comics murals that were along our path.  At Wolstraat 12 (note the street number is after the street name), a mural by Jan Bosschaert depicts Belgian author Hendrik Conscience (considered pioneer of Dutch literature) sitting atop a fountain where words spew out instead of water.  The mural is situated on such a narrow street that it was very difficult to try to take a photo of it.  On Korte Nieuwstraat is Dick Matena’s comic strip “Cheese” with its main character Laarmans walking across the Grote Markt carrying a bag of cheese. Having not heard of any of these artists or comic strips, we realized that we only were aware of a very small subset of Belgian comic strips.  As we continued our way home, we spotted a couple of extra murals that were not officially on our walking tour.