Thursday, December 20, 2007

Comparing the Palace Gates

Queen Elisabeth's palace gate (Buckingham Palace, London, United Kingdom) and Queen Beatrix's palace gate (Paleis Noordeinde, The Hague, Netherlands)





"Je Maintiendrai," "I will maintain," is the motto of the House of Orange and Nassau, the Royal Family of the Netherlands.

3 comments:

Carol Douglas said...

I've been interested in William of Orange and the Huis van Oranje-Nassau ever since writing about Bruegel with John. I never realized before this what an impact the Dutch Rebellion had on the specific business of representing God in art (even though I "understood" the divide in art after the Protestant Reformation in an academic way). Now I think the great Dutch church interiors are kind of indirectly related to the Holy of Holies... God present but not visible. I wish I knew a writer who was sound on this stuff. Any suggestions?

I'm slogging through Winston Churchills "History of the English Speaking Peoples". Good, bad or indifferent, the English monarchs would be far easier to track if half weren't named Henry and the other half named Edward, with a few Johns and Richards thrown in for good measure. Elizabeth II just became the longest-reigning English monarch. I'd argue her namesake, Elizabeth I, was the greatest English monarch. I know nothing about your Queen Beatrix. Perhaps I should learn more.

I never understand why every person who believes in past lives always imagines they were once Richard the Lion-Hearted or Cleopatra. I am certain that had I lived a past life, I would have been a peasant huddled against a cold stone hearth.

Paul said...

I don't know that much about church interiors, allthough I love Pieter Saenredams paintings (I have a book with some of his painting of Haarlem's Grote Kerk / St Bavo (Haarlem is my place of birth). If you Google with these words: grote kerk haarlem saenredam you can find some great pictures and web links!
Queen Beatrix is very popular in our country. There are some hard-line republicans who don't like the idea of a monarchy but even these people would like to have Beatrix for president ;-)

There is a lot of information available on the Internet about our royal family (just look at "Queen Beatrix" in Wikipedia) and I can also recommend a visit to the official web site www.koninklijkhuis.nl (left upper corner of your screen: English)

Carol Douglas said...

After reading about Queen Beatrix I think the British royals would do well to emulate her. I saw a photo of her with her late husband; she looked relaxed and happy, like one's aunt dancing at a family wedding. There is something more professional and business-like about your monarchy, and it must have given your country a sense of identity during the dark days of German occupation.

The United States has never had a royal family; if our government collapsed how would we continue to be Americans? (I'm not advocating that--trust me, I'm anything but a monarchist--I'm just speculating aloud.)

Ottawa, the Canadian capital to which she was evacuated during WWII, is about four hours northeast of us.