{"id":964,"date":"2008-08-04T17:06:18","date_gmt":"2008-08-04T16:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dickonedwards.co.uk\/diary\/?p=964"},"modified":"2008-08-04T17:06:18","modified_gmt":"2008-08-04T16:06:18","slug":"the-hague-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/archive\/the-hague-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hague – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Panaroma Mesdag is a gem – a huge 360-degree mural one views by standing inside an observation tower. It’s painted in 1881 by HW Mesdag, and depicts the nearby holiday resort Scheveningen, a name so hard for non-Dutch natives to pronounce that it was rumoured to be used in WWII interrogations for rooting out German spies. The Panorama is part of a small Mesdag gallery – his seascapes are equally impressive and vivid, rather like early Turners.<\/p>\n

Then I nip over on a tram to Scheveningen itself, to compare the 1881 painting with the resort as it is today. It’s a huge and popular place – the beach seemingly endless in either direction. I walk around in a suit while surrounded by thousands of Dutch people in swimming costumes and Speedos – that’ll be me being me, then.<\/p>\n

While in Scheveningen I wander on the double decker pier, peek inside the ornate Kurhaus’s ceiling, and coo at the seahorses and giant turtles in the Sea Life aquarium. Best of all, I discover the Beelden Aan Zee sculpture gallery, with its Tom Otterness figures in bronze outside. He has a thing for round-headed, triangle-hatted little men, inspired by fairy tales and fiction. His ‘Herring Eater’ is gigantic:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While his Moby Dick looks rather friendly and cute, even when eating people:<\/p>\n

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\n(Images from Wikipedia)<\/em><\/p>\n

Inside is a touring show from the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, on the theme of metamorphosis. It’s called ‘Against Nature’. Always a good sign. Incredible stuff: mythological figures, angels, centaurs, androgynes, humans stuck in otherworldly transitions, a man with a lace-up face (the ultimate Nike acolyte?), gooey abstract renditions of lovers melting into each other as they kiss, and Mr Epstein’s robot-like ‘Rock Drill’ creature. Except it’s not the famous bronze torso (as seen in the Tate), but a recreation of Epstein’s original 10ft-tall plaster cast, where the masked figure has a full body and rides an actual rock drill:<\/p>\n

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Language-wise, I manage okay in English – guiltily. But I do come unstuck in the Museum Of Communication, the only tourist attraction in The Hague that’s entirely in Dutch. I’m guessing the irony has already been pointed out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Panaroma Mesdag is a gem – a huge 360-degree mural one views by standing inside an observation tower. It’s painted in 1881 by HW Mesdag, and depicts the nearby holiday resort Scheveningen, a name so hard for non-Dutch natives to pronounce that it was rumoured to be used in WWII interrogations for rooting out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}