It was addictive for me and I kept looking at my TV to follow some of the best cyclists from around the world. They rode in large cities, small villages, valleys, near lakes, fields and mountains. It was a treat to watch the risk-taking cyclists in this thrilling race. (Click on collage to enlarge.)
Showing posts with label Brussels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brussels. Show all posts
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Le Tour 2019
It was addictive for me and I kept looking at my TV to follow some of the best cyclists from around the world. They rode in large cities, small villages, valleys, near lakes, fields and mountains. It was a treat to watch the risk-taking cyclists in this thrilling race. (Click on collage to enlarge.)
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Brussels – the Armenian Boghossian Foundation and Villa Empain
After leaving Erasmus’s garden (see last post) we went back to our friends’ home for a late lunch. It was a delicious lunch with fresh German mineral water. (Please click on pictures to enlarge them, and a second time on each picture in collages.)
We were taking an evening train back to Paris and quickly packed our bags. Our friend said we had enough time to visit one more interesting building in Brussels. When they suggested that we visit the villa renovated by the Boghossian Foundation, I said “yes” immediately as I knew this would be an Armenian foundation. My friend Serge parents were both Armenian and my father was an Armenian from Istanbul, Turkey.
About 94% of Armenian family names end with “ian.” My maiden name did end in ian and was long and difficult to pronounce. Many Armenians who left during the mass killing in Turkey changed their names. The father of Andre Agassi of tennis fame changed their name from Aghassian to Agassi. Mike Connors who played Mannix in a CBS show was born Krekor Ohanian. Arlene Francis who was a panelist for years on “What’s my line” was born Arline Francis Kazanjian. Of course everyone knows that the singer Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian. But some did not change their name like the author William Saroyan, the musical drum maker Zildjian, “doctor death” Jack Kevorkian and, of course, the Kardashian family. Some names did not end in “ian” like the journalist Nicholas Donabet Kristof who wrote the book “Half the Sky” and is a regular commentator for the New York Times – his father was an ethnic Armenian from the Carpathian region of Europe.
Serge told me the story of the Villa Empain as we were driving there. Edouard Empain was a self-made Belgian engineer, railroad and banking tycoon who became extremely wealthy. He founded many companies including the Paris Metro which his family owned until 1949 and the development of Heliopolis near Cairo, Egypt. One of his sons, 21 years old Louis, had a residence built in a prestigious area of Brussels. This art deco gem was built in 1934 as a bachelor pad. Louis donated his property to the Belgian State in 1937 with the understanding that it would become a museum of contemporary art. This was not done and several years later the German Army requisitioned the villa and occupied it until the end of the war. Then it became the Soviet Embassy. In the 60s the Empain family recovered the property since the Belgian State had not made it a museum, as agreed, and then sold it. It was occupied by a TV station in the 1990s but was later abandoned – vandals and squatters came in - this was almost the end of the beautiful villa.
Fortunately a family of Armenian jewelers, the Boghossian, rescued the villa when they purchased it as headquarters for their family foundation as well as for a cultural center promoting an East-West dialogue through art. The Boghossian family fled Armenia during the genocide. They left Lebanon after the civil war there and pursued their diamond and jewelry business in Geneva, Switzerland and Antwerp, Belgium. For more than four generations they have created fine jewelry. Their brand “Bogh-Art” is sought after by jewelry connoisseurs. Below are some samples of their work.
Much of the interior of the house had been destroyed and extensive renovations had to be made. The Boghossian Foundation and the Brussels Region Committee spent over 12 millions Euros (US $17.3 million) to bring the villa back to its original splendor - it was opened to the public in April 2010. “We want the Villa Empain to become a center of creativity and of dialogue between different cultures,” Jean Boghossian writes on the foundation’s website. “If the Villa Empain becomes the center of shared creativity, the ‘embassy’ of oriental cultures in the capital of Europe, we will have realized our dream.” Pictures below showing renovations from the archives of the Boghossian Foundation.
Once inside I was overwhelmed by the beautiful Art Deco lines, the doors and partitions carved from mahogany, rosewood and burr walnut. The floors and wall covered in Carrara marble look sleek.
An exhibit called “Modesty and Anger of Women” was being shown – it will be there until 25 September 2011. The brochure states that thirty Eastern and Western artists were invited to express themselves on the multiple aspects of the feminine body.
“Rituals, wigs, scarves, make-up and so many other constraints determined the life of women for Centuries, between concealment, unveiling and revealing…. Since millenniums and in most cultures, women hide certain parts of their body. Is it natural modesty which protects them, signs of respect or constraints imposed by a collectively recognized decency?... The mirror, the Oriental amulets which protect from the evil eye, eyes hidden behind dark glasses or under the netting of a chadri, made up with kohl, shy or provocative; the mysteries of these multiple expressions have fascinated and inspired many artists.” Here is a collection of pictures I took at this exhibit.
I especially liked this sculpture
Well, maybe because of the frog. Isn’t it cute?
The artists were from many different lands: Egypt, Switzerland, Japan, India, France, Italy, Poland, The USA, UAE, Iran, Lebanon, Israël, Iraq, Russia, Turkey, the Netherlands, China, Portugal, Belgium. As I was walking admiring all these pieces of art I was also checking the many Art Deco touches and furniture of the villa.
The swimming pool looked like a cool oasis during warm days (wish I was there now!)
Entering a small room we saw a couple of inviting chairs to rest our tired feet.
There was more to see like these photographs by Egyptian Youssef Nabil
but we had a train to catch in a little while. So we left this splendid villa. I still had time to take more pictures of the Brussels buildings.
It did not take very long to pick-up our bags and be at the station.
Time to take our 7:15 pm train to Paris.
What a wonderful two days we had in Brussels. We saw so much it seems we were there much longer. Au revoir Bruxelles!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Brussels – Erasmus House and Garden
The Tour de France is over for 2011. Cadel Evans of Australia is the winner. Mark Cavendish of the UK (Isle of Man) won the Green Jersey, Samuel Sanchez of Spain won the Polka-Dot Jersey and Pierre Rolland of France the White Jersey (see my last post to understand the meaning of the jerseys.) It was moving to watch Cadel Evans on the podium on the Champs-Elysées in Paris at the conclusion of the Tour.
Now after all the Tour emotions I am returning to reporting on our short stay in Brussels. After visiting the Beguinage in Anderlecht (see post here) we visited Erasmus House and Gardens.
Growing up around old buildings in France, I took antique houses as a matter of fact. After decades in the US I now am more impressed when standing in a house built several centuries ago. Erasmus house was built in 1515 and has been restored to the way it looked in 1521. It is one of the oldest Gothic houses in Brussels. This Burgundian style house was transformed into a museum in 1932.
A guide accompanied us through the house. No pictures were allowed and she stood close to me to make sure I would not take any. Coincidentally postcards were available for purchase and I bought several. We saw a Renaissance hall, a Rhetorical chamber, the study and a room with frescoes. Many works of arts, including drawings, prints by Albrecht Dürer and oils by Holbein are shown in them. In the Rhetorical chamber you feel you jumped back to the 16th century. Some portraits of Erasmus are in the study. The one below was painted by Hans Holbein the Younger (German 1497-1543.)
Another room had the walls covered with Cordova leather in turquoise and gold. The room with frescoes had gothic furniture and a rare collection of volumes of Erasmus.
The library has many prints of Erasmus and I understand that there is a reading room, containing one the world’s largest collection of 16th century volumes, which is reserved for scholars researching ancient works. Erasmus lived in this house in 1521.
I knew the name Erasmus but, frankly, was not sure about what he had accomplished. I read up on it and have enough notes to write a 10 pages report – no,I won’t transcribe them here… I’ll try to sum it up. Desiderius Erasmus was born in the Netherlands, in Rotterdam, in either 1467 or 69 and died in Basel in 1536. Rotterdam has a statue of him.
1622 Statue of Erasmus in Rotterdam (courtesy Wikipedia)
Below is a 100 Dutch Guilders bill showing Erasmus. The Guilder was the currency of the Netherlands until it was replaced in 2002 with the Euro. Actually I still have some old Guilders in a purse.
Erasmus wrote some popular books including Encomium Moriae (In Praise of Folly) (1509) which poked satirical fun at church and society. He was against the powers of ignorance and superstition and loathed clerical fanaticism. He was disgusted by the ignorant hostility to learning that reigned at the time. In 1516 he published a pioneer translation of the Greek New Testament with parallel Latin text. It exposed the many errors of the text the Catholic Church was then using. Of course the Catholic Church did not like that and it censured many of his writings. He was for a time placed, on the order of Pope Pius IV, on the Roman Index librorum prohibitorum, the List of Prohibited Books.
Erasmus was an innovator, a reformer and an eternal student. His message was spread through his books and thousands of letters. He favored church renewal and tolerance. Here was a man in the 1500s who believed that one should not judge others’ ideas, that mankind should have free will and independent beliefs (as when he visited Moslems.) He would have liked to see the power of the clergy broken; he had the ear of the educated class. Alas Luther spoke to the people and the ignorant and out of his revolt arose evangelism, another type of fanaticism.
Portrait of Erasmus, Quent Massys, Belgian 1465-1530
Erasmus was a pacifist and attempted to persuade the rulers by his books and letters to end wars and bring peace to their lands. Erasmus’ Adagia (explanation here ) first published in Paris in 1500 contains the following writing: "The people build cities, princes pull them down; the industry of the citizens creates wealth for rapacious lords to plunder; plebeian magistrates pass good laws for kings to violate; the people love peace, and their rulers stir up war."
Peter van den Dungen, a Lecturer in Peace Studies at the University of Bradford in England says that : “ If any single individual in the modern world can be credited with 'the invention of peace,' the honour belongs to Erasmus rather than Immanuel Kant whose essay on perpetual peace was published nearly three centuries later." I think we need another Erasmus right now.
“He who allows oppression shares the crime. The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.” Erasmus
Portrait of Erasmus in his later years, Hans Holbein the Younger
Peter van den Dungen, a Lecturer in Peace Studies at the University of Bradford in England says that : “ If any single individual in the modern world can be credited with 'the invention of peace,' the honour belongs to Erasmus rather than Immanuel Kant whose essay on perpetual peace was published nearly three centuries later." I think we need another Erasmus right now.
“He who allows oppression shares the crime. The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.” Erasmus
After the visit of the museum we walked toward the garden. Erasmus introduced the concept of a philosophical garden -‘Nature is not silent but speaks to us everywhere and teaches the observant man many things if she finds him attentive and receptive.’ (Convivium religiosum.) The garden was redesigned in 1932 and again in 1987 on medieval and Renaissance ideas.
Each curative plant has a tag with its name and a little figure of Erasmus showing where it helps the body.
We left the enclosed garden and entered another garden which was not so formal but in a more natural setting.
Beautiful roses were climbing on the red brick walls.
Chairs and benches are placed in various parts of the little garden to incite you to sit and meditate. Some light wood benches had a beautiful design and I sat for a few seconds to silently contemplate the wild flowers nearby – but my husband was coming and we could not stay long.
There was no more time to observe the sun rays and shadows playing on the leaves. It was time to leave this magical garden – so peaceful in the middle of the vibrant cosmopolitan city of Brussels.
So we walked back to the planted garden to rejoin our friends.
And here is my favorite quotation:
"I am a citizen of the world, my homeland is everywhere, I'm a foreigner everywhere" - from a letter Erasmus wrote to the reformer Ulrich Zwingli.
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