Let me play among the stars…

In the night of June 20 to 21, 1969, my father woke me and my sister up in the middle of the night. This was in Holland, were nothing much exciting ever happened. We wondered what it was about as we were shepherded into my parents’ bedroom, the only place in the house that had a television. Grainy images and crackling noises came out of the black and white Philips TV set, you know the one, with a V-shaped antenna on top. My father pointed to the screen and said: “they have just set foot on the moon…”.

It was impossible to fully understand what was happening in that moment but all I thought about was Jules Verne’s wonderful book “From the Earth to the Moon” that I had devoured. I was 9 years old. I understood the book was science fiction and written a century earlier but it was so credible that it did not surprise me that it became reality on that day.

Now every other billionaire dabbles in space exploration but then it was the domain of powerful nations, super human effort and unmeasurable amounts of money. Shocked into the Space Race by the Soviet Union in the early 1960’s, the USA vowed to put-a-man-on-the-moon before the end of the decade. And so they did.

The moon has always played an important role in my life and imagination. On the great plains of Africa around the Equator, the moon is enormous and luminous, shining so much light that you can read a book in the middle of the night.

Back to that night of June 20, 1969. It was the beginning on an era of thrilling sentences: “The Eagle has landed”, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Or later during the Apollo 13 mission: “Houston, we have a problem” (in fact it is “Houston we have had a problem”). I use the latter ALL THE TIME in the present tense! The poise, the concentration and nerves that were needed at the Mission Control Center in Houston during the Apollo 13 Mission was epic. You wonder about a Mission with “13” as its number…

As a child I would lay awake at night agonizing about the expanding universe and eternity, feeling extremely little and unimportant. But the image of EARTHRISE viewed from the Apollo 11 lunar orbit prior to landing was strangely comforting and as close as I will ever get to a feeling of the divine.

Fly me to the Moon had become a reality in the 1960’s and Frank’s smooth voice is here for eternity to remind us, the ultimate version sung by Sinatra was arranged by Quincy Jones for Count Basie. A cassette (!) recording of relevant songs to accompany a flight to the Moon was played during the Apollo 10 Mission, besides “Going Back to Houston” and “Moonlight Serenade”, “Fly me to the Moon” was the first song ever played in outer space. Talk about cool, from the coolest singer of all times.

The moon was now a physical part of the human world…

On February 25, 1941 an exceptional stand by outraged workers in Amsterdam against the Nazi occupation!

By early 1941 it became increasingly clear that the Nazi’s were determined to speed up their persecution of Jews and other people they deemed “undesirable”.

The outlawed Communist Party decided to call for a large scale strike in Amsterdam. On the evening of  February 24 a manifesto was prepared calling for a general strike. That manifesto writes: “STAAKT!!! STAAKT!!! STAAKT!!!” – STRIKE!!! STRIKE!!! STRIKE!!!”.

On February 25, 1941 Amsterdam came to a virtual standstill when the tram workers engaged in a general strike to show their solidarity for their fellow Jewish citizens.

The strike quickly spread to other cities, but was brutally countered the next day by the Nazi forces: 427 strikers were arrested, only 2 survived deportation and execution.

This general strike was the only one conducted during the war in any of the countries occupied by the Germans and an exceptional act of courage and solidarity.

The very particular way the Italian painter Bronzino portrays hands….

Portrait of Marie de’ Medici (1573-1642)

I visited the charming exhibit “Florence: Portraits at the Medici Court” at the Musée Jacquemart André in Paris and was immediately drawn to several Bronzino portraits. By 1540, Agnolo Bronzino (1503–1572)  was the leading artist and court painter in Florence to Cosimo I de’ Medici. His opulent yet restrained portraits of noble men, women and children are as vibrant and fascinating today as they must have been during his lifetime.

Portrait of Ludovico Capponi (1551)

The most striking thing is the way Bronzino depicts the hands of his sitters. He was ofcourse a “mannerist” painter and that style took Italy and the rest of Europe by storm in the mid 16th century.

Portrait of Eleonora of Toledo with her son Giovanni (1544-45)

Bronzino paints the hands in a very particular manner:  a large gap between the index and middle finger, a smaller gap between the ring finger and pink…this is quite an unnatural pose for a hand, what is he trying to say?

Portrait of Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici (1560)

The positions of the hands are also intriguing, as if just lightly caressing the objects they hold or shield…what are they saying, are they just symbolizing the fact that those aristocratic hands were delicate and had never seen hard work? Or were the hands secret messengers?

Full title: Portrait of a Young Man Artist: Bronzino Date made: probably 1550-5 Source: http://www.nationalgalleryimages.co.uk/ Contact: picture.library@nationalgallery.co.uk Copyright © The National Gallery, London

The French art critic Hector Obalk made a short film shown at the exhibition about the difference in the way the Florentine painters painted hands, but I find the Bronzino “hands” the most fascinating.

Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi (1545)

The faces in the portraits are never smiling, always a little solemn and distant, the eyes gazing, mostly sideways, but sometimes fixing themselves at you, with a mixture of disdain and wariness…

Portrait of Eleonora of Toledo as a Young Woman (1539)

These portraits never fail to amaze and enchant me, these people could just jump out of their frames and stand in the room with you, you can nearly smell the perfume on the women’s clothes and feel the touch of their hands…

Portrait of a Young Man with a Book (1530–39)

“If the hands of time were hands that I could hold,
I’d keep them warm and in my hands,
They’d not turn cold!”

Lyrics “The Hands of Time” by Michel Legrand