The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1915-09-25

u am u Dutch romance is the child of in
- NlHH5IA dustry, enterprise, logged courage,
AR&tTHAHlHHFAe fogs and waterways, and its great
4AP days fell within the limits OF the
seventeenth century Then ships
of Holland sailed all the seven seas and brought
home wealth and tales of adventure. Then its
sailors hammered at the arctic ice-pack and
pushed their trade among tropical spice islands
Then it was that De Ruyter sailed up the Thames
with a broom at his masthead; then, too, that
Rembrandt painted and Vonde rhymed. That
also for Holland great building age when
prosperity caused cities to grow, canals to be
dug, ports to be built and the multiplex activity
of Dutchmen to manifest itself in all kinds OF
markings and shapings upon the surface of their
amphibious land-half EARTH half water Thus
1t is the Holland of Rembrandts day and there
about that remains most interesting to the trav-
eler and it is the buildings then erected that
most worthy of study and presentation within
her towns.
Amsterdam when Rembrandt went to settle
there about 1881. passing architecturally
through period of transition. The small
OF the city, where everything a small
scale, still retained many remnants Of the me-
dleVal age The canals in it were narrow the
accommodation for ships was exiguous. grow
ing population and expanding trade finding
themselves horribly cramped.
Amsterdam grew like onion, by layers
rounding layers about a center From time to
time new rings of canals added, with radial
connections. and then more rings outside them.
OF course fortified walls erected round the
whole at different dates but they never lasted
long and had to be replaced by circuits as
the city expanded. The OF each new circuit
became canal within the next. Those who were
responsible for the important changes made at
the beginning of the seventeenth century had the
go0d sense not to destroy every memorial of
medieval days In particular they spared some
OF the old fortifcatiOn towers, applying them to
new purpose and Tefitting them accordingly Thus
the tower called Montelbaanstoren, which still
stands by the old Schans. of the largest
basins of the earlier canal system, was a part of
the medieval Notifications. They turned it into
a picturesque bell tower by the addition of a
superstructure set up in the year 1906. Though
this was done before Rembrandts day, he omitted
the steeple in admirable drawing he made of
it. thus giving one among countless instances
that might be cited. of his attachment rather to
the past than to the coming taste of the people
of his day. The only other high tower at Am
sterdam drawn by him was the Westertoren or
tower of the Westerkerk the Prinsengracht
which unfortunately, we cannot produce in this
place. That tower a favorite with the folk
of Amsterdam, and l have than once found
it referred to- in narratives of Dutch exploration
measure of height as, for instance, when a
glacier cliff is said to have stood out of the
about high the Westertoren. 1t is stored
tower. composed of four retreating rectangular
stages, each with columns at the angles,
unlike some of Wren's towers in the city of Lon
don.
rather late when PaIladian ideas were at
fecting Dutch architects. This a feature of
the change of taste. which made the art of Rem
brandt old fashioned and terminated his pros
perity The Mint tower of 1910, and the others
shown in our illustrations, are examples of Am
sterdam steeple architecture of Rembrandt's own
generation If they must be called fantastic they
certainly picturesque, and admirably suited
to enliven a canal vista to poke up out of
foreground of crOw-stepped gables.
These the typicay Dutch towers these
buildings of the great days of Dutch romance
Earlier towers we can find in Holland, but they
C14h
France. France also set the key of architectural
style in the eighteenth century. In the seven
teenth century Holland stood her own feet
and other folk initiated the work of her artists
The Dutch style affected England; it was imi-
tated in the remarkable buildings erected in Den
mark for Christian ". 1t penetrated to the ends
of the earth. 1t went with Dutch Adventures to
New York, to Ceylon, to the Cape of Good Hope.
where examples of it may still be hunted out by
patient searching
Our illustrations include few of the earlier
towers of Holland about which a word or two
must be said. Here, for instance the Cathe-
dral and one of the medieval gates of Maastricht
neither OF them in sense enthusiastically
Dutch, for the Holland that the world admires
was created in the fire OF the Reformation wars
The cathedral church of St. Servatius at Mas
tricht is of early Christian foundation and it is
claimed that portions of the existing walls
date back to the sixth century. The building as
we it, however. is great romanesoue
church of Rhenish style, with restored eleventh
century towers at the angles of its apse and a
later Gothic bell tower adjacent to a side aisle
Utrecht and Delft have bell towers of a like kind
the upper story being many-sided and MANY
gabled. Another such tower is in Paradise itself
if we are to believe Hubert Van Eyck's picture of
that deectabe land the famous altarpiece still
at Client, unless the Germans have carried it of
Medieval Maastricht not a large place
The Cathedral was in the center of it, not more
than five hundred yards away the remains of
the city walls of 1890 The exgencies of war
make the military architecture of a given date
everywhere much the same. Thus the tower
thanked south gate of Maastrcht is not different
IN design from many another that can be found
IN the old cities of Europe But though it had