Midwestern Girl in Paris: Belgium, Part Two: Ghent

Ghent is located in northeast Belgium, about halfway between Brussels and Bruges. It's a fairly large city for Belgium, and by that I mean the metropolitan area has a little over half a million inhabitants. It's both a port and a university city, which boosts both its economy and its population. We arrived a little bit before two in the afternoon, and by that time it had stopped raining, fortunately, although it stayed cloudy and gray until we got to Bruges later that evening.

I've always heard that people in the Belgium and the Netherlands love their bikes, but I never really understood what that meant until we walked past the park across the street from the Ghent train station.

All of these bikes are for rent. The park is in the middle of a giant roundabout, and while the center of the park is an open space, the grassy area all the way around is absolutely jammed full of THOUSANDS of bikes.

I can't even get it all in one shot.

Our professor took us via one of the trams that run all over the city, in addition to the many buses, up into the historic city center that rests on top of a gradual hill. Here there are a trio of well-known medieval buildings: the Belfry of Ghent, St. Nicolas' Church, and the Saint Bavo Cathedral. You can see them all grouped along the same street:

St. Nicolas' Church is front and center, Saint Bavo's Cathedral is the tower off to the right, and you can just barely see the Belfry peeking out from behind St. Nicolas' on the right. Unfortunately, across this street from the church on the right there's also a McDonald's. I swear, every time I see something like that I just want to stand up and apologize to whoever's listening. Something like, "I'm sorry that our disgusting American capitalist fast-food is marring your incredibly historical landscape and polluting your culture." But I digress...

We headed into the cathedral. The building was originally a smaller wooden structure consecrated as the Chapel of St. John the Baptist in 942. It was expanded starting in 1038 and became the stone cathedral it is today over the course of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries.

But what the cathedral is most famous for is its Ghent Altarpiece, painted by Flemish Renaissance master Jan Van Eyck (although technically it was begun by his brother, Hubert, and Jan finished it). It was finished in 1432, and was originally installed within the cathedral in the private chapel of Joost Vijdt and his wife (the couple who commissioned the work). The painting is what's known as a polyptych, a multi-panel work that has two side wings that allow the polyptych to be opened or closed. It remained closed most of the time, but would be opened on important Christian holidays. The polyptych is now in a special room near the front of the church to preserve it, and a facsimile rests in the chapel where it originally stood. You don't have to pay to get into the church, but you do to get into the room to see the altarpiece. See what they did there?

Taking pictures of the altarpiece is strictly forbidden, but here is what the facsimile looks like in the chapel:

The altarpiece closed. At the very top are prophets from the Old Testament foretelling the coming of Christ. In the middle is the Annunciation. On the left is the angel Gabriel, who is announcing to the Virgin Mary (on the right) that she will become pregnant with the Christ Child. She reads from the Book of Isaiah (which contains the prophecy of the Annunciation), and the dove above her head represents the Holy Spirit. (These are common details found in paintings of the Annunciation. I'm full of little factoids like this now thanks to my art history class. It's actually proving quite useful in my other travels.) The panels in the middle of the bottom are painted in grisaille, which means they are painted to look like sculptures, and represent St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. The panels to their left and right are depictions of the Joost Vijdt and his wife.

The polyptych opened.

This picture of the open altarpiece gives you a better idea of what it looked like opened. The altarpiece's title in English is "The Adoration of the Lamb," as you can see in the biggest panel on the bottom. Adam and Eve are up there on the far left and right. In the center on the top is God the Father, and seated next to him are the Virgin and St. John the Baptist. Next to them are angels who either sing or play musical instruments. According to my art history professor, Jan Van Eyck was so talented that experts have been able to determine which angels are singing the alto part and which are singing the soprano part. The groups of figures on the bottom are various male and female martyrs, saints, popes, pilgrims, hermits, and holy knights.

Believe me when I tell you that these don't have anything on the real altarpiece. The colors are so vivid, the figures so incredibly detailed...it was amazing. We stood their just taking it in for a couple of minutes, although unfortunately the panels on the front of the altarpiece were just black and white facsimiles, as the real things are currently being restored.

We then wandered around the rest of the church, then our professor led us down along the main canal in Ghent, which was so adorable and picturesque.

The belfry across the square from Saint Bavo's.

Found this on the bridge where I was taking all of these pictures. Just in case, you know, you needed someone to tell you that this might be good spot for some photos.

Brian was one of the non-art history class students who came on the trip. Now there is PROOF that we are studying abroad together!

The bridge in the distance beyond the white boats is where all of the previous pictures were taken.

We then made our way back down the hill towards the train station to pop into the Museum of Fine Arts to look at some more Flemish Renaissance art.

(That's my professor, haha.)

As we walked through the museum, we came across a large glass window looking into a workshop where some pieces were being restored, and look what we found!

The original outer panels from the altarpiece! There was also a very nice gentleman who worked for the museum hanging around who explained to us about the altarpiece, a lot of which wed just heard earlier from our professor. But he did tell us that the panels had been in the museum for a week, but wouldn't be done being restored for...I think he said about five years? Or something crazy like that.