Sitting in a bookshop reading introductions to books about the city/country I’m in is a crucial part of my enjoyment of that place. So when Philip said we may not be going there for a while, I sulked a bit. As I sat in my very comfortable sulking chair, trying to look for a positive slant to this dilemma, a couple of books talked to me.
Alain de Boton spoke first from his ‘Art as Therapy’ book. He talked about art as a tool to help us make changes in our own life after first looking at what the artist was attempting to convey, maybe in relation to his/her life. Alain seemed to be looking at art in a way that removes the intellectual approach, the mystery, and bring it to a level that understanding of it was not based on a deep knowledge.
Then Marcel Wanders showed me the 17th century paintings in his vast book ‘RIJKS – Masters of the Golden Age’, where he imagined the stories behind these paintings. He invited me to take a closer look at them so I could appreciate more, the subtleties in the detail the artist spent so much time in perfecting.
They weren’t the books I had in mind but they were certainly the books my mind was unconsciously needing at that time. The urgency for the bookshop had now dissipated because I had found my own at Philip’s home.
Reading these books started after a long walk through the local streets of his smart village outside Eindhoven. It was here that we saw that bikes were king. Maybe common is a better word as the Dutch are not at ease with too much hierarchical structure in their life. Philip drove us to an erstwhile home of Antwerp for the day where he brought the place alive with his reminisces. Visiting his old home, his place of work, eating the local dishes and walking familiar streets was as good as it gets. Then it was off to Amsterdam.
Following a walking trail we discovered its famous canals, following them, crossing them, watching them. But I was on an unusual mission with a fresh approach to art that hadn’t touched me before. We ate lunch as we walked, following tram number 17’s tram track to the RIJKS. It was late but no queue so for my first time this trip in an art gallery, I was excited about what I might discover.
Back home and it’s breakfast in Philip’s designer kitchen, lunch under the radiator on his deck, dinner by his spacious lawn, and then supper by one of his open fires. In between we go for walks, drives and biking, have long discussions or simply continue reading in his fireside bookshop.