An arty morning

For the first time since we’ve been in Europe, Celia went in one direction this morning and I went in another. We arranged to be home by three o’clock. I had the cellphone, and Celia had the number (and the street address). It felt quite strange, as we’ve hardly been apart for more than half an hour since we arrived in Hamburg at the beginning of the month.
Anyway, Celia went off to the mall/supermarket (I hardly need to remind you that these are her museums), and I went to the Museum of Fine Arts, which is in easy walking distance. And it was free.
What a dream of a place! In the large foyer, there are paintings that would barely fit on the walls of our apartment. As you go in beyond this there are rooms and rooms of wondrous religious art, some of it huge. Upstairs is a mixture of later art works, with more portraits, and then upstairs again are more modern works, though nothing seems to date much beyond the beginning of the twentieth century.
It was exhausting just trying to take it all in, what with Goya and El Greco and various other great Spanish painters on display. And then there were two courtyards: one is a wonderful fresh garden, with palm trees, and green, green plants. The other is bare apart from a statue of Martin de Tours and the beggar. However, around the windows on the first floor is a wondrous blue colour.
It’s interesting how limited the range of subject matter is in religious art. While the Spanish paint St Francis a good deal more than other countries, there are dozens of versions of the Crucifixion and the events surrounding it. Curiously there aren’t many Nativity scenes in this museum. But there is one vital and energetic picture of the Holy Family (plus John the Baptist). Unusually the two boys are grown men in this picture and along with Joseph they’re hammering away at something not very obvious in the centre in a very muscular fashion. Mary is stuck on one side.
St Sebastian comes in for several portraits. [That's him in the picture.] Here in Spain he’s always shown in his dying agony with just one arrow in him. (Usually in other countries there’s a welter of arrows). It’s a puzzle why he’s such a choice subject for artists. I’ve just had a look at the interesting Wikipedia article on him, and seemingly even though he was shot full of arrows he survived, was nursed back to health, and went on to bring more people to Christ. So it’s interesting that the Spanish versions have him with only one arrow, and obviously dead. The other curious thing is that he’s always virtually naked in whatever country he’s painted, and his body is always romanticised as being a fine specimen of young manhood. (The Spanish tend to make him a youth, in fact, which he wasn’t when he was shot.)
In the museum there are few examples of mythical art, though the Rape of the Sabines makes its usual appearance. It’s curious that this is another motif that’s so common in art of this time. Is it because we lean towards certain themes, or is it because of something altogether different? It’d be interesting to know.
After this I made my way into town (which is when I discovered that the Metro is both underground and tram) and finally found a place to post the postcards we’ve been carrying around for days. At the Post Office, of course. Post boxes are a rare thing in Valencia, as far as we can make out.
Celia finally arrived home half an hour after our arranged time, absolutely exhausted, of course, but still fairly cheerful. Her foot had stood up to the pace, apparently.

Echternacht

On Thursday our hostess drove us to Echternacht, a smallish town north-east of Luxembourg city. It’s famous for a couple of things, particularly, the Catholic Abbey and its surrounding university, and the Roman remains. The latter is particularly special: for instance out near the local lake are the foundations of an old Roman villa, still intact (with some restoration as well) and showing the extent of the building as well as the pool in the front of the house. This is almost as long as the main building. I presume it was decorative rather than for swimming purposes (!)
The Romans populated this area pretty thoroughly in the past, and, as I’ll mention in the next post, their ‘leftovers’ are everywhere.
In the town of Echternacht itself we went and visited the Abbey which is primarily known for its association with Willebrod, [sometimes Willebrord] a British bloke who decided that the people of the area needed evangelising - some 1300 years ago. He was so popular that people have been making pilgrimages along the routes he took in his evangelising ever since. The church he built in Echternacht at first, was soon too small, and one of the wealthy Christians of the area donated funds to build a much bigger one. (Willebrod was dead by this time.) This second church was destroyed by fire around the year 1000, if I remember rightly, and so a third (and bigger) church was built. The French Revolution damaged this one to a great extent, and with the ensuing secularisation of the area, the shell of the church was used as a place for tradesmen to work in.
In due course, Christianity (particularly Catholicism) came into its own again, and in the 19th century the church was restored to such an extent that it was virtually a new church. Unfortunately, this church was thoroughly bombed in the Second World War, and so a fifth reincarnation of Willebrod’s church came into existence. This is virtually a new building, with absolutely superb modern stained glass (wonderfully colourful) but little else in the way of decoration. The old crypts are still there and Willebrod’s tomb is in one part of them. A sketch of his effigy on one of the tombs (the one we saw has a kind of stone boxing over the top) shows the effigy not in the usual state of repose, hands folded across the chest and eyes closed, looking as though the work is done. Nope, Willebrod is on his back, but is up on his elbows, eyes open, looking for all the world as though he’s had a rest and ready to go again.
Echternacht is full of cafes and gift shops - in the area we were in - but has lots of charm. We stayed and had lunch - onion soup with soggy croutons in it for mine hostess and me, and some sort of sausage dish for Celia. She’s been very keen to try out the sausages, but hasn’t quite made it generally. There’s such a choice of sausages, it’s hard to know where to start. And of course, they don’t exactly fit into the Weight Watchers’ scheme of things.