3A has to work this week. The grandkids are at their daycare. But #3 has taken off time from work as she has lots of days she needs to use up. So we decided that we might as well get out and do some stuff.
So today we got out and went to the Rijksmuseum. Hard as it is to believe we've never been there in the 10 years we've been visiting the daughter her. One of the main reasons was that has been closed for a good part of that time for some major ass renovation. This was the first time that we've had the chance to see the originals of the great 16th/17th century Dutch masters. It revived my faith in the power of painted art. To be honest we have seen scadzillions of paintings on this trip - canvas, wall, frescoes, murals - and for the most part they have been pretty dreadful. I don't know if the Hapsburgs had the worst taste in art ever, but so much of the stuff we saw was just emotionally impacting not to mention some of the real problems we saw with perspective. It was then interesting to look at later centuries when the money to support art and the talent was elsewhere in Europe at how the quality declined.
We met up with 3A for lunch in the Centrum (downtown) and then decided to take a boat tour of the canals that was just okay but at least got us off our feet. I had done two long walks with #3 yesterday so I was ready to call it a day after that. There was a lot of rain and combined with the perspective of the boat on the canal (low looking up) decided that it wasn't worth taking a bunch of pictures. Similarly I decided that you can look up pictures of the Dutch masters on line that are a lot better than anything I could take.
It is so nice to be able to be with our family.
1 comment:
amen to that last one!
Post a Comment