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| Tower of Babel |
VIENNA, AUSTRIA For 16th and 17th century European art enthusiasts, you'll enjoy the Rubens, Vermeers, Rembrandts, and Durers at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Halle 12 is where you'll find the paintings of Pieter Bruegel, the Elder, the 16th century Dutch artist, who paints complex scenes of human activities often with a sardonic twist. The Tower of Babel is my favorite and worth the price of the ticket. The picture depicts the building of the Tower of Babel described in Genesis. Unaware that the Tower is doomed to failure, tilting and crumbling, the workers continue to labor on. It's an intriguing theme and one whose essence is captured in a series of etchings, by a another artist, we have at home, in which one progresses from an idylic hopeful scene, through a series of challenges, to a scene of death and distruction. The series of prints we own is called "Journey to Find Out." In Bruegel's painting, the hubris of achieving immortality by building a tower to heaven is doomed to fail, resulting in death and destruction for the workers and the town sitting at the foot of the tower. For a "wannabe" roving anthropologist, Bruegel is the perfect roll model.
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| Austrian Capitol |
From the art museum, I went to the Austrian Parliament, a greco roman edifice, where I joined a bilingual German/English guide, who, in describing the events surrounding WW II, said, "Hitler marched into Austria in 38 and the allies occupied Austria until 55 before we gained our freedom." That was that. Nothing more to report. End of subject. She continued on to show us the chambers and explain how their parliamentary system works. There wasn't any discussion - just rat-a-tat-tat and we were through in our alotted fifty minutes. From the Parliament, I walked over to St. Stephen with its obligatory scaffolding, recalling that I had yet to see a cathedral in Europe without scaffolding, and reflecting back on Bruegel's The Tower of Babel. In 71, I had gone through St. Stephen, from the steeple down to the bones stacked in the catacombs. It was a good tour then, probably free, but now at 14.50 Euro, I decided to pass. I've seen a few cathedrals on this trip and I'm sure there'll be more to come.
