Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1915-10-01
.e MARTN CONWAY

\ dlW ~ days fell within the limits OF the
~ seventeenth century. Then ships
of HOLLAND sailed all the seven seas ana brought
home wealth and tales of adventure. Then JUS
sailors hammered at the arctic ice-pack and
pushed their trade among tropical spice islands
Then Il was that De Ruyter sailed up the Tnames
with a broom at his masthead; then, TOO that
Rembrandt painted and Vondel rhymed Ihat
also for Holland was a great building age, wnen
prosperity caused cities to grow, canals 10 Dc
dug ports to be built, and the mult1plex actlVty
of Dutchmen to manifest itself in all kinds OF
markings and shapings upon the surface OF their
amphibious lahd-half earth, half water Tnus
1t is the Holland of Rembrandts day and tnere-
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 1884, was passing INTELLECTUALLY
through a period of transition. The small core
of the city, where everything was on small
scale, still retained many remnants OF the me-
dieval age The canals In it were narrow the
accommodation for ships was exiguous. grow
ing population and expanding trade were finding
themselves horribly cramped.
Amsterdam grew like onion by layers sur
rounding layers about a center From time to
time new rings of canals were added, with radla
connections, and then more rings outside them
OF course fortified walls were erected round the
whole at different dates but they never lasted for
long and had to be replaced by new circuits as
the city expanded. The moat 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
good sense not to destroy every memorial or
medieval days. In particular they spared some
of the old fertilization towers. applying them to
rev purpose and refitting them accordingly. Thus
the tower called Montelbaanstoren, which still
stands by the old Schans one of the largest
basins of the earlier canal system, was part OF
the medieval fortifcations. They turned 1t into
a picturesque bell tower by the addition of
superstructure set up in the year 1906. Though
this was done before Rembrandts day, he omitted
the steeple in an admirable drawing he made OF
1t, 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 on the Prinsengracht,
which unfortunately, cannot produce In this
place. That tower favorite with the folk
of Amsterdam, and have more than once found
1t referred to- in narratives of Dutch exploration,
as measure of height, as, for instance, when
glacier cliff is said to have stood out of the sea
about as high as the Westertoren. 1t is a stored
tower, composed of four retreating rectangular
stages, each with columns at the angles, not
unlike some of Wrens towers in the city OF Lon
don.
The Westertoren however carries down
rather too late, when Palladian ideas were af-
fecting Dutch architects. This was 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. II they must be called fantastic they
are certainly picturesque, and admirably suited
to enliven canal vista to poke up out of
foreground of crow-stepped gables.
These are the typicaly Dutch towers, these
buildings of the great days of Dutch romance.
Earlier towers find in Holland but they
are Gothic, and re-echo the style elaborated In
France. France also set the key of architectural
style In the eighteenth century. In the seven
teenth century Holland stood on her own feet,
and other folk initiated the work of her artists
The Dutch style affected England; 1t imi-
tated in the remarkable buildings erected in Den
mark for Christian ~. 1t penetrated to the ends
Of the earth. It 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-
dral and one of the medieval gates of Maastricht
neither of them in any sense enthusiastically
Dutch, LOT the t1OlldHu LHdL inc WOTlu aunlreS
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
even claimed that portions of the existing walls
date back to the sixth century. The building as
we see 1t, however, is a great romanesque
church of Rhenish STYLE with restored eleventh
century towers at the angles of its apse and
later Gothic bell tower adjacent to side aisle.
Utrecht and Delft have bell towers of 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 Eycks picture of
that delectable land the famous altarpiece still
at Client unless the Germans have carried it off.
Medieval Maastricht was not a large place.
The Cathedral was in the center of it; not more
than five hundred yards away are the remains of
the city walls of 1890 The exigencies Of war
make the military architecture of given date
everywhere much the same. Thus the tower
fanked south gate of Maastrcht is not different
in design from many another that can be found
IN the old cities of Europe. But though 1t had