Aangenam Amsterdam

Coming across “Thirty Centuries of Persian Art and Culture” on the Shore of Amstel River

A couple of years ago, as I sat in a beginner level class in an attempt to master basics of Flemish language,I learned the word aangenam first thing first as in ‘aangenam kennis making’, nice to meet you! It was my very first words venturing into Flemish and I took it for an open sesame leading denizen foreigners (see previous blog contents) straight into a spot in the heart of Nettlelanders; but que nenni! Not at all, just some wishful thinking.
Paying recently a neighborly visit to the next door Nederland, I couldn’t help but notice, once again, how high the Dutch scored when it comes down to switching into English even when one is actually trying to show off a basic knowledge of their aangenam language versus the unforgivable look of Nettlelanders while you are bravely attempting to get by.

Anyway Amsterdam looked to me a bit shabby and run down this time but it still had the power of running wild my imagination toward the seventeenth century, when Armenian merchants arrived there, then the trendy center of world trade, with their silk loaded caravans making the long journey through Russia. They offered their silk for the bullions they brought back to the Persian Safavid court. The resulting wealth contributed to the modern state building of the time, in Iran. So in a way, between Amsterdam, Russia and Persia it has always been an old story. That’s what's giving such a natural feel to the opening of the Hermitage museum on the canal belt and an even homier feel to its seventh exhibition featuring Persian Art.

The old days of Golden Age silk trading are long gone and embarking into a search journey brings nothing but deception. Much like the time I visited the Willet-Holtuysen house dating back to that meaningful time. The name belongs to the art collecting family who owned it in the nineteenth century which of course explains why I couldn’t find the least littlest bit of my own quest into that particular moment of history so dear to me. Yet I keep imagining those Armenian merchants_ who competed and won against the powerful East Indian Company when the great Shah Abbas Safavid auctioned the monopoly of trading his silk_ as business dinner guests in the Genteel Gratchtengordel houses.

So one guesses how much I was amazed to discover that the Hermitage Amsterdam, a work in progress, which opened his doors in 2004, featured ‘Persia, Thirty Centuries of Art” as his seventh venture into the rich collection of the Great Hermitage. It was tough the old days were kind of resuscitated!

A sleepy Shah as guide and Art narrator…

A short walk from the Herengracht, crossing the bridge over Amstel river toward the n° 14 on the Nieuwe Herengracht got me at the door of the museum’s 500 m2 exhibition space divided into a total of six galleries where the big portrait of a stoned looking Nasir Al-Din Shah from the pool of Qadjar dynasty greeted the visitor with words some humor driven curator had put in his thick whiskers covered mouth:

“Ours is a land full of people, full of Art. Your visit will be a joyful reacquaintance with these delights”.

Boy! Despite his opium imbued look it was though the guy knew what he was talking about.

The exhibition focused on the recurring leitmotif of old forms and traditions.

The first gallery displayed a sample of pre-Islamic art. Small everyday objects that the languid eyed Nasir explained as the starting point:

“Our story begins with the Elamites a people who lived in our realm many thousands of years ago. It was they who made the first works of Art. Simple pieces yet already imbued with an aesthetic style that would continue to characterize our Iranian Art.”

What captured my attention was a dark blue coffee jug with its bird’s beak looking spout. A knock-out piece of modern design out of a thee drinking nation!
The second showroom outlined Iran’s tradition of bronze and ceramics production. Here again my ever so sleepy Shah went on with his towering comments:

“We Iranians love flowers, plants, people and animals. The prophet Mohammed, may God bless him and peace be upon him, warned us not to have divine pretensions and breathe life into man and beast in images. But our artists could not resist this temptation, for they desired to represent the creation of Allah. The Iranians preferred to call their craftsmen artists and they in turn interwove form and decoration to create aesthetically pleasing objects, from simple bronze cauldron to candle stands for mosques.”

It seemed to me that then as now, artists, shahs and simple mortals were all already outsmarting God and the forbidding ways of his prophet!

The third section outlined the importance of Iran’s fabulous calligraphy and miniature painting featuring works of my hometown’s master, the famous Reza-e-Abassi of the Isfahan school of painters. So I was sufficiently in awe to take the Shah’s word as some spell binding statements. With his outwardly gaze he went on as though guessing my state of mind:

“In the eleventh century hijra (18th century) Isfahan masters were influenced by contacts with the west. These contacts gave miniatures a more ‘three dimensional' character and added European towers, houses, bridges and horses to the painters repertoire. In the second half of the 12th century hijra (19th century) Iranian artists were also fascinated by Indian (Mughal) painting.”

I stood there in front of fragile illustrations of literary epics, tragic love stories some of them learned on the school benches and reflected on that bygone story book place I lived once upon a time.

Pulling myself out of a nostalgic reverie, I followed the fourth part with more bronze and ceramics and learned that Kerman was one of the most important center of ceramic production, that in the years before the Safavid period a new style was introduced and artists began to engrave ornaments and inscriptions (suras from the Koran etc.) that resembled a large net. Metal ware was also decorated with expressions of greeting and congratulations or wishes of happiness and success. Then came a time of Chinese influence; dishes from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries with a central medallion and the Ming dynasty porcelain patterns all of it an outcome of the trade between Iran, China and Europe.

The fifth group of glass and textiles showed the skills of Iranian glass blowers. Beautiful curves and the transparent blue colors combined to the beauty of brocades, mantles, scarves and garments, usually worn indoors by royals left me to ponder about the more practical side of cloth washing job. How they managed to not damage such a dainty material? Nasir Shah didn’t seem to have an answer for this and I skipped all together the subject. One shouldn’t bother a royal with such trivialities.

So that brought me to the sixth and final part of the show. The lethargic Qadjar period of loose cloth fashion and beard growing. Animal figures were no longer made of copper or bronze but of steel. The central piece in this Qadjar gallery was a carpet featuring Persepolis, symbol of the Qadjar’s will to link themselves to the grandeur of the oldest dynasties. Portrait paintings made its appearance…that’s probably how Nasir ended up leading visitors through this very exhibition while the West was already opening his way into the legendary realm of Iran.

I bade farewell to Nasir, his sleepy look so familiar by now and headed out to the museum's store stocked with various Iranian items. I gave in to the temptation of the moment and bought Mijn Minnaar, My lover, by the late Forough Farrokhzad, the celebrated poetess of the twentieth century as a gift for my daughter,wondering about incredible turns of fate…my own daughter discovering Forough’s beautiful poems in Dutch! The DVD of Jafar Panahi's movie “Circle” winner of the 2000 Venetian Gold Lion tackling the women’s treatment under the rule of Islamism as well as a cookbook for the first Flemish speaking friend who comes up showing some interest in Persian cooking.

Yeah! Het was me eens aangenam in Amsterdam.
Flora