The Low Countries. Jaargang 5 bron The Low Countries. Jaargang 5. Stichting Ons Erfdeel, Rekkem 1997-1998 Zie voor verantwoording: https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_low001199701_01/colofon.php Let op: werken die korter dan 140 jaar geleden verschenen zijn, kunnen auteursrechtelijk beschermd zijn. i.s.m. 12 Antwerp, World Port and Provincial City The name ‘Antwerp’ - or ‘Antwerpen’ as it is in Dutch - is related to the Middle Dutch ‘aenwerp’, meaning alluvial land, but no true citizen of Antwerp will accept this modest explanation. In the local dialect the ‘h’ of, for example, ‘hand’ is not sounded, and so clearly ‘Antwerpen’ derives from ‘Hand-werpen’, meaning ‘Hand throwing’. This explanation of the The Brabo fountain on the main square, by Jef Lambeaux (1887). name has its origin in the well-loved legend of the young hero Brabo, who freed the poor fishermen from the tyranny of the giant Antigoon. The giant would chop off and throw away the hand of any fisherman sailing down the River Scheldt who refused to pay a toll. After Brabo had defeated Antigoon, the Emperor allowed him to throw the giant's chopped-off hand from the tower of his stronghold, thereby demarcating the area of the new city. This legend comfortably links the origin of the city with the right to free navigation and liberation from tyranny. However, alongside the Antigoon legend, which the romantic nineteenth century consecrated with the impressive statue of the hand-throwing Brabo on the main square, there also persists another die-hard Antwerp self-image, and this one does have a historical basis. During the sixteenth century Antwerp became a world capital and the memory of that golden age, when every burgher was a ‘Sinjoor’ (‘seigneur’ in French, ‘señor’ in Spanish), lives on to this day in the minds of the people. In 1993, when Antwerp was (again) the ‘cultural capital of Europe’ (see The Low Countries 1993-94: 272), a study of the city's image was carried out among the people of Antwerp and among ‘non-Antwerpenaren’. It appeared that the inhabitants see themselves without hesitation as tolerant, humorous, intelligent and international, while the outside world was particularly aware of the provincial arrogance and narrow-mindedness of the people of Antwerp who, in their view, mistakenly believed that they lived in ‘the capital of Flanders’. The Low Countries. Jaargang 5 A chequered history According to the generally-accepted view of history, in the sixteenth century Antwerp became the successor to Bruges, which had been the The Low Countries. Jaargang 5 13 A View of Antwerp, plate from Description de la Baronnie, chasteau, drefves, villages, Hame(...) & Bois et aultres appendances, terre et s(eigneu)rie de Beveren en flandres, 1602. Antwerp, Arenbergarchief, LA 4413. Entry of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, at the head of his troops in Antwerp on 27 August 1585 (Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Brussels). economic and cultural centre of the Low Countries under the dukes of Burgundy. After the conquest of Antwerp in 1585 by the troops of Alexander Farnese, the Italian governor of the Spanish Netherlands, the role of Antwerp was taken over by Amsterdam. But according to Fernand Braudel (Civilisation and Capitalism, 1979), that story is over-simplistic. He argues that Antwerp became the successor to both Bruges and Venice, and that during its brief golden age the city was the centre of the whole international economy. Antwerp was linked by busy trade routes to London, Lisbon, Cadiz, Genoa, Brazil, the Atlantic islands and to the coasts of Africa and Northern Europe. The Low Countries. Jaargang 5 14 Unknown Master, Market Day on Meir and Meir Bridge in Antwerp. Late 16th century. Panel, 90 × 140 cm. Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels. However, the prime movers in this spectacular upturn were not the indigenous people but merchants from the Northern European Hanse cities: the English, French and, above all, the Spanish, Italians and Portuguese. As befitted an international seaport in times of growing religious tension, the city of Antwerp was an example of religious tolerance. Braudel distinguishes three periods: that of the Portuguese, dominated by the trade in pepper (1501-1521), the Spanish period when the main commodity was silver from the New World (1535-1557) and finally the years of rapid industrial growth in Antwerp and the Netherlands (1559-1585). Between 1500 and 1568 the city's population shot up from 44,000 to over 100,000 and the whole infrastructure was thoroughly modernised. This growing prosperity went hand in hand with the disintegration of the traditional medieval social fabric, creating a widening gap between rich and poor and, as a result of that, social unrest and religious conflict. The estrangement between this modern, tolerant, early-capitalistic and increasingly Calvinistic metropolis and the Catholic Spanish hierarchy eventually led to Antwerp's participation in the uprising against the Habsburgs and the definitive end of its golden age. The economic and intellectual elite fled to the free, up-and-coming North, where they made a great contribution to the development of the Dutch Republic, while the closing of the River Scheldt in 1609 sealed the material fate of this port city. Curiously enough, Antwerp remained an important centre of culture even in the seventeenth century: the Jesuits saw to the modernisation of education, where great emphasis was placed on (Jesuit) drama and mathematics as well as on the Greek and Latin classical writers. This distinctly intellectual order also stimulated the blossoming of the baroque in what was now the Antwerp of the Counter-Reformation. For The Low Countries. Jaargang 5 15 example, both the interior and the exterior of the Carolus Borromeus Church are among the finest examples of the so-called ‘Jesuit style’. Indeed, Pieter Paul Rubens had a hand in the plans for the church's interior and made a series of remarkable paintings for it. This world-famous painter was also involved in the building of the Porta Regia on Vlasmarkt and, of course, in his own ‘Rubens' House’ (see The Low Countries 1996-97: 302). But Rubens and his school (which included Otto van Veen) were not alone. There was Jacob Jordaens (who, among other things, drew up the plans for the St Anna Chapel and ‘Jordaens' House’); there were also Antoon (later Sir Anthony) van Dyck, Ambrosius Francken, Maarten de Vos, Abraham Janssens and Jan Bruegel. True, the printing trade was by now almost entirely in Roman Catholic hands, but it produced a wealth of theological, Christian humanist, liturgical and devotional works. And religious sculpture reacted to the ravages of the Calvinist iconoclasm of 1566 by creating altars, pulpits, confessionals, communion rails and organ and rood screens of great artistic quality, as well as images of saints and representations of the Madonna (St Paul's Church, St James' Church and Carolus Borromeus). Even after the partition of the Low Countries in 1648, Antwerp remained an internationally-renowned centre of silver making (Abraham Lissau, Willem van der Mont, Johannes Moermans, Wierik Somers III and Han Herck) and of violin and harpsichord building (Hans Ruckers, Johan Daniel Dulcken and Pieter Borlon Jr.). But the real revival came in the nineteenth century with Napoleon, who The Low Countries. Jaargang 5 The facade of the Carolus Borromeus Church. The Low Countries. Jaargang 5 16 began modernising and expanding the port. The River Scheldt was reopened In front of the medieval ‘Steen’ stands Lange Wapper, the bogeyman from Antwerp folk tales. in 1839 when the Netherlands and the new Belgian state signed the London peace treaty, and Antwerp gradually became one of the largest seaports in Europe. In the twentieth century, Antwerp, along with the rest of the country, was twice occupied by the Germans, but when liberated in 1944 it lost no time in resuming its role as a large naval and, later, trading port. Containers, pipelines and diamonds As an Allied supply port, the city suffered severe damage from flying bombs (the German V1 and especially V2 rockets) towards the end of the Second World War. However, it was possible to rebuild or restore the oldest buildings and streets so that today's visitors can easily form a picture of the city's rich history: from the medieval castle known as the ‘Steen’ and the high Gothic tower of the Cathedral of Our Lady The Low Countries. Jaargang 5 (see The Low Countries 1993-94: 266), via the Town Hall and the guildhalls in Flemish Renaissance style, the baroque churches of St Paul and St Carolus Borromeus to the Art Nouveau houses that line Cogels-Osylei and even the single house designed The Cathedral of Our Lady, seen from the south-east (Photo Provincial Government of Antwerp). The Low Countries. Jaargang 5 17 by Le Corbusier located near the first Canadian tank, now preserved as a monument, which signalled the liberation of Antwerp in September 1944. What visitors do not immediately see are the Plantin and Moretus printing works (see The Low Countries 1994-95: 236-243), the birthplace of the independent-minded sixteenth-century polemicist, poet and teacher Anna Bijns and the Ruusbroec Society's collection of mystical manuscripts, to mention just a few of the hidden treasures. The visitor who wonders what the people of Antwerp do for a living need only pay a visit to the docks and the diamond district. It soon becomes clear that Antwerp is now first and foremost a container port, its quays stretching right up to the Dutch border. The port area is also home to a whole string of oil refineries, hence all the tankers travelling to and fro. So Antwerp lives on an increasing volume of world-wide container traffic and on the refining of crude oil.