AMSTERDAM TO FROM VAN EYCK TO VAN GOGH

MAY 19 – 4 JUNE, 2017 TOUR LEADER: DR NICK GORDON

Amsterdam Overview To Paris From the 15th century the Low Countries witnessed an extraordinary Van Eyck to Van Gogh period of cultural brilliance. Brisk trade, merchant-based governments, humanistic education, religious dissent and a taste for luxury and everyday detail combined with an artisan culture to produce a period now Tour dates: May 19 – June 4, 2017 known as the Northern Renaissance. The visual worlds and distinctive Tour leader: Dr Nick Gordon religious and political identities that emerged from the region continue to influence Western art. Tour Price: $8,970 per person, twin share

Landscape, still life, genre painting and the modern portrait were all Single Supplement: $2,440 for sole use of developed in the Low Countries, starting with the innovations introduced to double room oil painting by Jan van Eyck and continuing through the work of Bosch, Brueghel, , and Vermeer and down to Van Gogh. But Booking deposit: $500 per person the political and religious map of Europe was reshaped here too, with the emergence of Protestant republics in the north and the struggles of Recommended airline: Emirates peasants and burghers against the ambitious Holy Roman Empire. With the glory of the , a vast colonial empire brought Maximum places: 20 fabulous riches and ensured the posterity of the art and history of the Low Countries. Itinerary: Amsterdam (4 nights), Delft (2 nights), (4 nights), Bruges (3 nights), Paris (3 This 17-day tour goes beyond the clichés of windmills and wooden shoes, nights) taking us from Amsterdam to Delft, Brussels, Bruges and Paris, exploring the fascinating art and history of the Low Countries along the way. Visiting Date published: May 17, 2016 both the larger cities as well as smaller centres such as and Ghent, we enjoy exceptional museums and galleries, and appreciate the cityscapes that have remained largely unchanged since the glory days of the Northern Renaissance

Your tour leader

Dr Nick Gordon holds a University Medal and PhD in History from the University of Sydney. He specialises in medieval and early modern European history and has taught at Australian universities for 10 years, on topics ranging from Ancient Greek democracy to the art and culture of Renaissance Italy, the French and industrial revolutions and the rise of modern psychology. He has presented numerous popular art history courses at the University of Sydney’s Centre for Continuing Education, and is a regular speaker in the Nicholson Museum’s public lecture series.

Nick’s academic expertise is complemented by the specialised knowledge Enquiries and he has gained as a practicing artist, and he brings these insights to the art enjoyed throughout this tour. Nick has been leading cultural tours to bookings Europe since 2006 and his passion and for the extraordinary art and history of the region led him to develop this tour in 2014. For further information and to secure a place on this tour “So many details combined to make this a tour I will never forget. It was a please contact Hannah thoroughly rich and enjoyable experience, so a huge thanks to Dr Nick, Kleboe at Academy Travel on Hannah, and all the other staff involved. I’m looking forward to my next 9235 0023 or 1800 639 699 tour with Academy Travel.” Group member on our Amsterdam to Paris (outside Sydney) or email tour in 2015. [email protected]. au

The Art of Light

Image: The Ghent Altarpiece, upper register, depicting the Virgin Mary, the Almighty and John the Baptist

For centuries, Jan van Eyck was honoured as the ‘inventor of oil painting’. The claim is erroneous – linseed and walnut oils had

been used from at least the 12th-century, mostly for furniture and outdoor banners. The idea of him as the inventor comes from an elision of a medium with a technique, which is all the more curious because the claim was made by the Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari, who himself was an accomplished painter who should have known better. There are also a handful of oil paintings from the decades before Van Eyck, mostly produced in the Low Countries. These works, however, are not as skilfully rendered. While oils had already been used, Van Eyck revolutionised how they were used.

What Jan van Eyck accomplished with his earliest surviving work with oils – the Altarpiece of the Mystic Lamb in the Cathedral of St Bavo in Ghent – is extraordinary, and must have been more so to his contemporaries. That the work possesses such a high level of detail is not surprising. Van Eyck had been a manuscript illuminator, and the Low Countries had produced some of the finest manuscript illuminators of the late Middle Ages – the Limbourg Brothers, for example, had been employed extensively by John, Duke of Berry. The altarpiece is different, however, in the range of naturalistic effects it captures. Most importantly, Van Eyck catalogues the ways that light acts – its reflections and refractions, the different types of shadows it casts, the ways it falls on different materials, how it is caught in the atmosphere – and how objects appear at different distances.

In this regard, Van Eyck’s pioneering of a new, less economical medium begins to make some sense. Light had long been used as a metaphor for spiritual illumination and there is a growing body of scholarship suggesting that Van Eyck was in contact with Nicholas of Cusa, who theorised that one comprehended the nature of God through close observation of the particularities of the material world. The carefully constructed layers of transparent oil paint (in some places painted over tempera underpainting) were better able to render the variety of effects of light and the particularity of each object than other available media.

He was not a faultless painter, however. Many of the pearls in his works have been identified as painted from actual unique and individual pearls. But the ones that are not perfect show that he has overgeneralised a rule he had learned from a Latin translation of Al Hazan’s 12th-century treatise on optics. Perhaps we may permit Van Eyck to have taken some short cuts. Painting was not his main profession; he was a chamberlain to the Duke of Burgundy, who paid him handsomely for secret diplomatic missions to the other courts of Europe. Close observation is perhaps also a handy tool for a spy.

Tour Highlights

 The extraordinary art of the Low Countries, with masterpieces by Vermeer, Jan van Eyck, Rubens, Rembrandt, the Brueghels, Magritte and Van Gogh  4 nights in Amsterdam, the cosmopolitan city at the heart of the Dutch Golden Age, with an extended visit to the recently reopened Rijksmuseum  Day trips to well-preserved medieval centres, including Utrecht, Ghent and Tournai  2 nights in Delft, Vermeer’s hometown, and a visit to Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans van Beuningen to see works by Bosch and Brueghel  4 nights in Brussels, with its Gothic churches and palaces and World Heritage-listed art nouveau buildings by Victor Horta  Day trip to the Meuse Valley, visiting the landscapes that inspired early landscape painters  3 nights in beautiful Bruges, with its World Heritage-listed medieval centre and tranquil canals  3 nights in Paris, exploring two of the world’s finest art collections at the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay Above: The Grand Place or Grote Markt in Brussels

Above: René Magritte’s Not to be Reproduced (La reproduction interdite, 1937); Van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1889); and Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665)

Detailed itinerary

Included meals are shown with the symbols B, L and D.

Friday 19 May Arrive After meeting in our hotel this afternoon we stroll through historic Amsterdam, the cultural and economic centre of the Dutch Republic. The merchants, artists and religious minorities who flocked here made it one of Europe’s most cosmopolitan cities and today we walk along its World Heritage-listed canals, lined with the townhouses of the wealthy burghers who ushered in the Golden Age. Dinner in a local restaurant. (D)

Saturday 20 May Old Amsterdam The Dutch Republic emerged from the religious conflict that reshaped Europe. This morning we explore the transformation of the city that became the centre of a Protestantempire extending from Japan to Brazil. We see how Gothic churches were redesigned for Calvinism and how Catholics worshipped in a clandestine chapel in a Above: the Oudegracht, or “old canal” runs through the centre of Utrecht patrician’s attic. At Rembrandt’s House, we see how art was and the old warehouses now house a lively restaurant and cafe scene made and sold to wealthy upper and middle-class patrons. After a welcome lunch in one of Amsterdam’s fine restaurants the afternoon and evening are at leisure. (B, L)

Below: a detail from Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, 1642, one of many treasures in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Sunday 21 May Utrecht and the Canal estates Utrecht was the focal point of Catholicism in the , even after the city joined the Calvinist Dutch Republic. We tour the city in the morning, with its peaceful tree-lined canals and magnificent 13th-century cathedral. In the afternoon we travel through the Vechtstreek, the picturesque countryside between Utrecht and Amsterdam, where feudal lords and the burghers of the Golden Age built their castles and estates. (B)

Monday 22 May A wealth of art Dutch Golden Age painters redefined the art of oil painting and popularised new genres, such as still life and landscape. This morning we visit the recently renovated Rijksmuseum, where we see masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Ruisdael, Franz Hals and more. After an extended break for lunch we meet at the nearby Van Gogh Museum with its stunning collection of masterpieces: Sunflowers, Almond Blossom and nine self-portraits are here. (B)

Tuesday 23 May The Hague and Delft We depart for Delft this morning, and spend the day in The Hague. The Hague’s art collections are impressive, ranging from Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and View of Delft in the Mauritshaus, to an extraordinary collection of M.C. Escher’s work in a museum dedicated to the artist. In the late afternoon we continue on to nearby Delft, Vermeer’s hometown. Dinner in a local restaurant. (B, D)

Wednesday 24 May Delft and Boijmans van Beuningen This morning is free to enjoy the beautifully preserved and tranquil town of Delft. In the afternoon, we visit the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, whose fine collection runs from paintings by Bosch and Pieter Brueghel the Elder to Magritte, Dali and contemporary design. (B)

Thursday 25 May Breughel and Brussels Today we travel to Brussels via Lier, a medieval town whose cathedral the Habsburg Phillip the Handsome married Joanna ‘The Mad’ of Castile. We also visit an excellent Above: Victor Horta’s beautiful art nouveau interiors for the Hotel Tassel in Brussels collection of Breughels currently on display in Lier. In the afternoon we continue on to Brussels. Dinner in a local restaurant. (B, D) Below: The Milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer, c.1660, in the Rijksmuseum Friday 26 May Gothic and Renaissance art in Flanders Flanders and were the economic heart of northern Europe in the Middle Ages and the centre of an artistic revolution in the 15th century. This morning we visit the Royal Museums of Fine Arts to see its magnificent collection of Old Masters, including Rogier van der Weyden, Rubens and Hans . The afternoon is at leisure, giving you the opportunity to explore the Modern Museum, with works by David, Ingres, Mirò and Matisse, and visit the World Heritage-listed Grand Place. (B)

Saturday 27 May Modernity in Belgium Today we explore the life and works of two of modern Belgium’s leading artists. We visit the extraordinary house and studio of Victor Horta, a profoundly influential architect who pioneered Art Nouveau. After a break for lunch in the Sablon district, home to Brussels’ antique market, we visit the René Magritte Museum. Magritte was one of the most technically accomplished painters of the 20th century and few artists have explored the philosophies their day as systematically as he. (B)

Sunday 28 May Wallonia and the Meuse Valley Today we explore Wallonia and the Meuse Valley, the French-speaking rural south of Belgium. We explore the varying aesthetic influences on the area, with visits to the Romanesque collegiate church in Nivelles, the secluded gardens of Freÿr Castle, designed in the style of Le Notre, and to some of the small towns for which the Meuse Valley is famous: tiny Durbay, the world’s smallest city, and Dinant, whose landscape inspired landscape painters such as Joachim Patenier. Overnight Brussels. (B, L)

MONDAY 29 May The waterways of Ghent Ghent was one of the largest cities in medieval Europe and home to one of the most revolutionary artworks of the 1400s: the Altarpiece of Hubert and Jan van Eyck, housed in the Cathedral of St Bavo. After visiting the masterpiece and touring the city, we break for lunch. In the early afternoon we continue to Bruges with its perfectly preserved Flemish- Gothic architecture. Dinner in a local restaurant. Overnight Above: the view from Rozenhoedkaai, Bruges, where the Groenerei and Dijver canals meet Bruges. (B, D)

Below: detail from a work by Pieter Brueghel the Elder The Dutch Tuesday 30 May Proverbs, 1559 Medieval Bruges

Bruges was a magnet for European merchants, with a major port and strong banking network. The traders who came here attracted artists in their turn, and Jan van Eyck, Gerard David and Hans Memling all worked in the town. Today we explore the historic cityscape of Bruges and visit the Hans Memling Museum and the outstanding collection of works by Van Eyck, David, Bosch and van der Goes at the Groeninge Museum. The late afternoon and evening are at leisure. Overnight Bruges. (B)

Wednesday 31 May Antwerp Today we travel to Antwerp, which became Europe’s largest port and richest city in the 16th-century. The vibrancy of the city is reflected in the guildhalls of the Grote Markt, whose architecture influenced a young Gaudí, and in the canvases by Rubens in the cathedral. We visit Rubens’ house and studio and Rockox House, a patrician’s palace where art is displayed as it was in the 17th-century. Returning to Bruges, the evening is at leisure. Overnight Bruges. (B)

Thursday 1 June Tournai Today we travel to Paris via Tournai, the home of Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden. The town was a centre for fine cloth and tapestry in the Middle Ages and its economic boom brought a degree of self-governance. Our tour of the city takes in the World Heritage-listed cathedral with its blend of Romanesque and Gothic styles and phenomenal collection of medieval art, and the tapestry museum with medieval contemporary works. In the early afternoon, we continue on to Paris. Overnight Paris. (B, D) Friday 2 June Old and New Art in Paris

This morning we visit the Musée d’Orsay, with its fine collection of Van Gogh’s displayed in context with contemporary modern masters. In the afternoon, there is an optional visit to the Musée de Cluny, with its wonderful collection of medieval treasures from France, Burgundy and the Low Countries, including the celebrated tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn. Overnight Paris. (B)

Saturday 3 June The Low Countries in the Louvre The Louvre boasts an outstanding collection of Flemish and Dutch painting, and this morning we investigate key works by Van Eyck, van der Weyden, Rubens and others, placing them in the context of the French and German traditions also represented within the museum. The afternoon is at leisure, and we meet in the early evening for our farewell dinner. Overnight Paris. (B, D)

Sunday 4 June Departure Our tour ends today. Transfers are available to those who have booked their flights through Academy Travel to Charles Above: a detail from The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin, 1435, by Jan van de Gaulle airport. (B) Eyck, held in the Musée du Louvre

Below: the main hall of the Musee d’Orsay, a stunning conversion of one of the historic train stations of Paris

Hotels

Throughout the tour we stay in 4-star and 4-star superior hotels in the city centres. The hotels combine modern comforts with easy access to major sites.

 Amsterdam, Park Hotel (4 nights) www.parkhotel.nl

 Delft, Museum Hotel(2 nights) www.museumhotels.nl

 Brussels, Renaissance Marriott (4 nights) www.marriott.com

 Bruges, Grand Hotel Casselbergh (3 nights) www.grandhotelcasselbergh.com

 Paris, Royale St Honoré (3 nights) www.leshotelsduroy.com

Tour Inclusions Fitness Requirements

Included in the tour price of THIS tour  16 nights’ accommodation in carefully selected three Grade Two and four-star hotels  All breakfasts, plus lunches and dinners as noted in the It is important both for you and for your fellow travellers that itinerary you are fit enough to be able to enjoy all the activities on this  Land travel by air-conditioned coach tour. To give you an indication of the level of physical fitness  Extensive background notes required to participate on our tours, we have given them a star grading. Academy Travel’s tours tend to feature  Background talks extended walking tours and site visits, which require greater  Services of an Australian tour leader throughout tour fitness than coach touring. We ask you to carefully consider  All entrance fees to sites mentioned on itinerary your ability to meet the physical demands of the tour.  Qualified local guides where appropriate  Porterage of one piece of luggage at all hotels Participation criteria for this tour  Tips for all services included in the itinerary This Grade Two tour is designed for people who lead active Not included lives and can comfortably participate in up to five hours of physical activity per day on most days, including longer  International air fares, taxes and surcharges (see below) walking tours, challenging archaeological sites, climbing  Travel insurance stairs, embarking and disembarking trains and/or boats, and  Meals not mentioned in itinerary a more demanding tour schedule with one night stops or  Expenses of a personal nature such as laundry, phone several internal flights. calls or internet usage You should be able to:  keep up with the group at all times Air travel OPTIONS  walk for 4-5 kilometres at a moderate pace with only short breaks The tour price quoted is for land content only and dates in  stand for a reasonable length of time in galleries and this itinerary are from arrival in Amsterdam to departure from museums Paris only. There are a number of options available for flying  tolerate uncomfortable climatic conditions such as cold, into Amsterdam and out of Paris. Please contact us for humidity and heat further information on competitive Economy, Business and  walk up and down slopes First Class airfares. Transfers between airport and hotel are  negotiate steps and slopes on archaeological sites, included for all passengers booking their flights through which are often uneven and unstable Academy Travel. These may be group or individual  get on and off a large coach with steep stairs, train or transfers. boat unassisted, possibly with luggage  move your luggage a short distance if required Enquiries and bookings A note for older travellers If you are more than 80 years old, or have restricted mobility, For further information and to secure a place on this tour it is highly likely that you will find this itinerary challenging. please contact Hannah Kleboe at Academy Travel on 9235 You will have to miss several activities and will not get the 0023 or 1800 639 699 (outside Sydney) or email full value of the tour. Your booking will not be accepted until [email protected] after you have contacted Academy Travel to discuss your situation and the exact physical requirements of this tour. While we will do our best to reasonably accommodate the Weather on Tour physical needs of all group members, we reserve the right to May in the Low Countries is a beautiful time to travel. The refuse bookings if we feel that the requirements of the tour long northern days also give us plenty of opportunity to enjoy are too demanding for you and/or if local conditions mean the historic town centres well into the evening. Be prepared we cannot reasonably accommodate your condition. for a little climatic unpredictability, however; there are likely to be a number of rainy days during the tour. Daytime temperatures will generally hover between 17 and 200C with night time lows of about 100C.