Leeuwarden is an ancient and extremely pretty town in Friesland, the northernmost province of Holland. Like many Dutch cities, it's full of canals that once brought trade from all over the world. I snapped a picture of the original weighing-house, at which merchants had to stop and prove that they were providing honest measure before they could take their goods farther on up the canal to the market.
I had some time on my hands after my talk, so Tim dropped me off at the Princessehof Ceramics Museum, whose building, as luck would have it, is also the birthplace of the artist M.C. Escher, beloved of programmers, mathematicians, and nerds generally. The museum has an extensive collection of works from Holland's history, as well as a number of other Islamic and Asian pieces, including some Ming dynasty vases from China. (Looking at them, I couldn't see what the big deal is about Ming vases, but I'm probably just a philistine, or perhaps the ones I saw aren't necessarily the best examples.) My favorite collection was the large group of Art Nouveau plates and vases, of which this is one example. But the museum isn't limited to historical works; it also contains a number of modern items such as this dramatic statue of Eve as a dominatrix, holding two male demon-figures in chains and crushing the serpent under her foot. (The full title is E.V.E. 1: Erotics Versus Evil. This is one of the things I like about Europe -- precious few American art museums would dare have something like this in their garden.)
I also like these geometric works by the artist Wim Borst, most of which don't have any pretensions to functionality.
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I had some time on my hands after my talk, so Tim dropped me off at the Princessehof Ceramics Museum, whose building, as luck would have it, is also the birthplace of the artist M.C. Escher, beloved of programmers, mathematicians, and nerds generally. The museum has an extensive collection of works from Holland's history, as well as a number of other Islamic and Asian pieces, including some Ming dynasty vases from China. (Looking at them, I couldn't see what the big deal is about Ming vases, but I'm probably just a philistine, or perhaps the ones I saw aren't necessarily the best examples.) My favorite collection was the large group of Art Nouveau plates and vases, of which this is one example. But the museum isn't limited to historical works; it also contains a number of modern items such as this dramatic statue of Eve as a dominatrix, holding two male demon-figures in chains and crushing the serpent under her foot. (The full title is E.V.E. 1: Erotics Versus Evil. This is one of the things I like about Europe -- precious few American art museums would dare have something like this in their garden.)I also like these geometric works by the artist Wim Borst, most of which don't have any pretensions to functionality..
