'Looking up' in Bruges is often rewarding as there are statues and gargoyles all over the city. Many depict the Virgin Mary, with some inscribed Ave Maria. In the Church of Our Lady is the finest of them all - Michelangelo's white marble Madonna and Child (1506), which was reputedly snapped up by a Belgian merchant after the family who commissioned it in Italy failed to pay the artist. It has twice disappeared from Bruges, swiped and taken to Paris during the French Revolution and again stolen by the Nazis in WWII. It is very beautiful (even if Mary does look really sad) ... though it is displayed in a rather ugly, heavy looking altarpiece alongside some other statues which, by comparison, look quite crudely worked.
Mary does look really sad!
ReplyDeleteQuite lovely! I've read that she looks sad, knowing what is to come.
ReplyDeleteWow. I have been kind of busy this week, so I only had a chance to catch up with your lovely photographs of Bruges tonight. You saw so much more in Bruges than I did. I am impressed that you climbed up the windmill. When I was in the Netherlands, I visited some windmills that could be ascended, but I am so tall that I didn't fit in the narrow and low-ceilinged stairwell!
ReplyDeleteThis is a beautiful photo Jenny, how did you get the exposure so good? I visited Bruges last year. It wasn't quite a disaster but it wasn't a good visit. It was a day trip by coach - seemed like a good idea in the planning stage but in reality was way to far to go in a day. The weather turned to rain soon after our arrival and the Church of Our Lady was undergoing some renovations. The Madonna was behind an ugly piece of glass with an even uglier white border around it. I hope to return and stay for a few days.
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