Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1915-09-24
3x Marlin CONWAY

sailors hammered at the arctic ice-pack and
pushed their trade among tropical spice islands
Then it that De Ruyter sailed up the Thames
with broom at his masthead; then, too, that
Rembrandt painted and Vondel rhymed That
also for Holland great building age, when
prosperity caused cities to grow, canals to De
dug, ports to be built, and the multiplex activity
of Dutchmen to manifest itself in all kinds OF
makings and shapings upon the surface of their
amphibious lahd-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 are
most worthy of study and presentation within
her towns
Amsterdam, when Rembrandt went to settle
there about 1881, was passing INTELLECTUALLY
through period of transition. The small core
OF the city. where everything small
scale, still retained many remnants of the me-
dieval age The canals in it were narrow, the
accommodation for ships exiguous. grow
ing population and expanding trade were finding
themselves horribly cramped
Amsterdam grew like onion, by layers sur
rounding layers about center. From time to
time new rings of canals added, with radial
connections, and then more rings outside them
OF course fortified walls were erected round the
whole at different dates but they lasted for
long and had to be replaced by new circuits as
the city expanded. The moat of each circuit
became a canal within the next. Those who
responsible for the important changes made at
the beginning of the seventeenth century had the
good not to destroy every memorial of
medieval days In particular they spared some
of the old fertilization towers, applying them to
new purpose and refitting them accordingly Thus
the tower called Montelbaanstoren. which still
stands by the old Schans, of the largest
basins of the earlier canal system, a part of
the medieval Notifications They turned II into
picturesque bell tower by the addition of
superstructure set up in the year 1906. Though
IVA hpf 1hrau "a dav ha cd
the steeple in an 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 the Westertoren or
tower of the Westerkerk on the Prinsengracht
which unfortunately cannot produce in this
place. That tower was favorite with the folk
of Amsterdam, and l have more than once found
1t 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 as high the Westertoren. 1t is a stored
tower. composed OF four retreating rectangular
stages, each with columns at the angles not
unlike some of Wren's towers in the city of Lon.
don
The Westertoren however carries us down
rather too late, when Palladian ideas were af
fecting Dutch architects. This was feature of
the change of taste, which made the art of Rem
brandt old fashioned and terminated his pros
perity. The Mint tower of 1640 and the others
shown in our illustrations, are examples of Am
sterdam steeple architecture of Rembrandts own
generation. If they must be called fantastic they
are certainly picturesque, and admirably suited
to enliyen canal vista or to poke up out of a
foreground of crow-stepped gables.
These are the typically Dutch towers, these
buildings of the great days of Dutch romance
Earlier towers we can find in Holland but they
are Gothic. and re-echo the style elaborated in
Tran Erano ole cot Io lr1x, 80.
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 w. It 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 1t may still be hunted out by
patient searching.
Our illustrations include a few of the earlier
towers of Holland. about which a word or two
must be said Here, for instance are the Cathe-
dra1 and one of the medieval gates of Maastricht
neither OF them in any 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 Il is
even claimed that portions of the existing walls
date back to the sixth century. The building as
we see it. however. is great romanesque
church of Rhenish STYLE with restored eleventh
century towers at the angles of it's apse and
later Gothic bell tower adjacent to a side aisle
Utrecht and Delft have bell towers of like kind
the upper story being many-sded and MANY
gabled. Another such tower is in Paradise itself
II we are to believe Hubert Van Eyck's picture Of
that delectable land. the famous atarpiece still
Mt Client. unless the Germans have carried it off
Medieval Maastricht not a large place
The Cathedral was in the center of it: not more
than five hundred yards away are the remains of
<.ffx xyal c ~ frr
make the military architecture of a given data
everywhere much the same. Thus the tower
nanked south gate of Maastricht is not different
In design from many another that can be found
n the old cities OF Europe But though it had