The Romantic City of Bruges

Figure 1: A glimpse into the romantic city of Bruges.

Today, we took a day trip to Bruges, the most romantic and beautiful city of the Low Countries. Turns out, if any tourist would come to the Low Countries, they would only see Bruges and nowhere else because it is a city that’s stuck in history. Ever since the Middle Ages, the government gave money to the “more important cities”, such as Antwerp and Brussels, so that they could advance and move on, but Bruges just stayed the way it was, as a city in the middle ages. So tourists come to Bruges to experience the middle ages and the romantic city it is. In the middle ages, the population of the city was double its current population, which implies how Bruges was once an important city in Flanders.

Figure 2: An ancient document of the archive.

Our first stop in Bruge was the city archive, where the director, Noel Geernaert, showed us some of the huge collection of documents that record the city’s administration and history. One of the documents even recorded this religious creed that was given to Bruges. Another document had all the laws that were applied to the city of Brugeduring the time of the Flemish movement. It was interesting to see how some of the documents were of animal skin, wood, and then paper. Seeing the progression of material for these documents showed me how civilization advanced throughout the ages. Printing techniques were also invented as time passed, allowing some documents to be printed by machines instead of by hand. Although printing techniques may have allowed people to produce documents in an efficient manner, some documents were not as legible as others, so some ancient documents were more legible than later documents.

Afterwards, we were given a tour of the city and visited the City hall and the Chapel of the Holy Blood. I was astounded when I heard people could pay to see the “Holy Blood”. I was talking to a classmate, and she and I both concluded that we thought it was fake blood being displayed for commercial purposes. Scientifically speaking, blood is bright red when oxygen is still present in the blood. The moment blood leaves the body, the oxygen will escape from the blood too, which is why blood does not stay bright red for long. Logically speaking, do you really think the blood displayed at that church is the blood from 2,000 years ago when Christ died? I don’t think people back in the day had the technology or science to preserve oxygen in blood so that it would last into the 21th century for people to see. I find it amusing how people use the name of the church or other religious objects to raise money. Other than that, I was able to sense the religious atmosphere of the church since the church had so many images of Christ nailed to the cross and religious sounding music playing in the background. The atmosphere certainly rouses up anyone’s emotions to feel the religious atmosphere. I do appreciate how people respected the rules of the church, and it was interesting to see how some believers were mesmerized by the statues and images of Christ on the cross. If only they knew exactly how to contact the Lord what the Lord desires…

Figure 3: The Last Supper by Sustave van de Woestyne

Lastly, we visited the Groeninge Museum, which has collections of Flemish medical masters, including Jan van Eyck and Hieronymus Bosch. I was impressed by the “Last Supper” by Sustave van de Woestyne in 1927. It was this huge painting telling the story of The Last Supper in the style of Flemish Expressionism. The facial expressions of the men were a little distorted; I couldn’t make out how the artist thought the men felt during the last supper. I observed how there were many thick and spontaneous brushstrokes, which is very much the style of Flemish Expressionism. This piece of art was perhaps the largest piece of the museum, catching most people’s attention. Because the artist chose this piece to be gigantic, I’ll assume he holds the Last Supper as a very important event in history.