Beauty's Price Tag

Just as in Hell, the seventeenth-century still-life painter Abraham Mignon places his subjects—lasciviously vibrant flowers—against a velvety black background. On view in a small branch of the famous Rijksmuseum recently built within Schiphol airport the painting drips with excess and richness as luscious peonies and parrot tulips overflow their vase and a snail, a bee, and a caterpillar wiggle on the table below. Seeing the painting in that unexpected place, just off the airplane from Philadelphia, highlighted two things for me: for one, that the Dutch value high quality art in public places; they invest in it. For another, the history of the country includes extremes of indulgence in aesthetic pleasures. Some tulip bulbs, originally from Turkey, were said to have fetched the price of an Amsterdam canal house.

Today exotic and garden variety flowers are for sale all over Holland, inexpensively too, everywhere from market stalls to upscale shops. They figure into Dutch daily life: if you are met by a Dutch person after long-distance travel, you will receive a bouquet. Flowers are given to men and women, students, and people of all stations. If you celebrate a birthday, a baby, a promotion, a new house, or just have an empty vase, you'll get flowers. Shopping list: cheese, coffee, tulips.

Wie niet groot is...

The only Dutch choreographer in the Nieuwe Nederlandse dans project was Anouk van Dijk. Three of her four dancers are German; one is American. While Pieter C. Scholten is Dutch, Greco himself is Italian and their dancers represent many countries. This international amalgam holds true for each of the companies brought to Philadelphia during the project.

All photos by Jerry Remkes / Design by n/a designlab

This cosmopolitan attitude can be understood as a manifestation of the saying "Wie niet groot is moet slim zijn," which paraphrased means, "If you're not big, you'd better be smart." The Dutch have long taken care to learn the languages of their neighbors in order to facilitate trade and exchange, and it's quite common for a Dutch person to be fluent in four languages. Without many natural resources on which to build industry, the Dutch became skilled at seafaring, trade, and banking, drawing to their shores the best in merchandise and culture from around the world.

And with regard to culture, you can hardly find a greater contrast of sensibilities than that between the Netherlands and the United States in the post-"culture wars" era. The Dutch tradition of tolerance certainly contributes to the hothouse atmosphere for the cultivation of art. The saying "Je moet iedereen in zijn waard laten" ("to each their own") is taken so seriously that it is legislated in variety of ways. Having a right to choose your own lifestyle has meant that religious and political entities have been granted government support to form their own schools, newspapers, and television and radio stations. This phenomenon, known as "pillarization," has long been an accepted part of Dutch life and takes as its premise the notion that differences can effectively coexist, that consensus is possible amidst variety. [note 3]

In Holland the tension between individual expression (seen as important) and the collective good (even more so) seems to play out continually, creating a balance in the culture as a whole. In the arts, training opportunities, fiscal largesse, and an arts-embracing atmosphere magnetize aspiring and professional artists from around the world. The dance school where I taught (the European Dance Development Center, Arnhem) enrolled students from eighteen countries, including South Africa, Brazil, China, the US, and much of Europe.