Wereldmuseum, part 1

On Friday, I walked across the Erasmusbrug to see the Wereldmuseum--the World Museum.  This museum holds all kinds of cultural artifacts from around the world.  Anyone can see the permanent collection for free but the special exhibit, which they have in honor of the museum's 125th anniversary, costs 12 euros.  Fortunately, I have a Museumkaart and that meant I could see the whole museum for free.  You get a little audio-guide to take with you and, periodically through the museum there are little tabs and, when you hold your little guide up to it, it tells you about things in the room.  It was actually pretty handy.  The museum takes up the top three floors and there is a restaurant and gift shop on the ground floor.  You ride up to the second floor in an elevator to start the tour and then you walk through the whole rest of the museum and, when you leave, the only way out of the museum is through the gift shop.

According to the audio guide, the Wereldmuseum had started out as a Gentleman's Club.  I think, however, that there may have been a little cross-cultural mis-translation and, from the context, that they meant "Gentleman's Club" in terms of the kind that Bertie Wooster used to go to.  Club members were traders and people in the shipping business who used the club as a place to network and to display the treasures that they had brought back from all over the world.  Eventually they decided to open up the building to the public and eventually they donated/sold the building, and its artifacts to the city.  The museum had a major overhaul a couple of years ago so it is all new and fancy and a lot of fun to look through.  It took me about two hours to walk  through the whole thing.  The 125 Masterpieces Special Exhibit is a collection of the best objects from the collection.  You can see a little photo album of some of the pieces from the permanent collection here.  You can see a little photo album of some of the pieces from the 125 Masterpieces exhibition here.  They did not allow photography at the museum.

A lot of the stuff was from Indonesia, which makes sense, considering the length and depth of the Dutch involvement there.  However, a lot of Dutch collectors have donated their collections to the museum over the years so, at least according to the museum's own little audio guide, the Wereldmuseum has one of the best collections of world cultural and religious artifacts in the world.  The have a large collection of Peruvian stuff and a really incredible collection of stuff from the far east. They even had pieces from James Cook's own collection.  They also had North American native work.  One of the 125 Masterpieces pieces was a beaded Lakota bag (Hey!  I used to live where they used to live!).

They also had a large collection of Islamic art, mostly pictures and book covers from the 15th and 16th centuries.  They were painted with silver and gold leaf accents and were really quite beautiful.  There were a couple of interesting things.  One was the parallels with Byzantine art--there are similarities in structure and style that are interesting.  For one thing, apparently, the Islamic equivalent of Byzantium's golden halo to signify divinity or spirituality is golden flames.  It was quite interesting.

Byzantine Art--notice the halo around Justinian's head.

Islamic Art--notice the flames around Muhammed (on the right) and Moses, Abraham,  etc. (on the left).

The other interesting thing was the number of "Christian" themes that showed up in the works. There were pictures of Jonah and the Whale, different scenes with Abraham and a picture of "the Sacrifice of Ishmael" which looks like the sacrifice of Issac except that, in this particular picture at least, it looks like the angel is showing up with a spotted goat.

Did you know that Batik fabric was originally made as a form of worship to Indonesian idols?  The fabric was used in ceremonial clothing and patterns were woven together in a special order during religious ceremonies. This was important because, they say, the weaving s a textile representation of the same kinds of things as their chanting, or the way they combined scents, to assist in the path to enlightenment.  Once they had noted the commercial value of Batik, they started selling it to other folks.  They now differentiate between the regular stuff and the sacred stuff by decorating the religious stuff with gold leaf.

If you look at the photo album from the museum's permanent collection (right here), the very last picture is of a very colorful picture.  This picture is impressive because it is made entirely with colored sand. Apparently sand pictures, which are called mandalas, are used in Buddhist worship as a way of incorporating prayers.  It can take weeks for a design to be made, during which time they pray a lot.  Then, when it is done, the sweep up all the sand and dump it in the river as a symbol of the transience of life.  Can you imagine?  The one at the Wereldmuseum was made as a prayer for the safety of the Dahli Lama (I think) but for some reason it was preserved.  The little audio tour said that it is one of only two sand mandalas that are retained in the West.  I have attached some links to different websites that show the way they make these mandalas.  It is some pretty impressive artistry.   Here and here are two different sites that show pictures of different mandalas.  Here is a site that shows a mandala that was made after the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington and here is a site that shows time elapse photography of the mandala being built and then destroyed.  They had a 1000 piece puzzle of the mandala at the museum available at the gift shop and I was almost tempted to get it.