Week 38: Saarbruecken

Our travels a couple weeks ago took us to Saarbruecken, Germany, about 90 minutes south of us. Our plan was to visit the Saarland museum, which our Lonely Planet guide told us has a nice collection of Modern and Contemporary art, but when we arrived, we found that it was under renovations and, as a result, closed. A sign at the door mentioned that the museums located here the castle were open, so we took a walk to the castle.

Saarbruecken was heavily bombed during WWII, so the castle was more a modern interpretation or rebuilding of a castle rather than others that we have shown. As you can see in the picture below, between the more classic castle shape on the edges, there is a more modern design of glass. It did look pretty cool, I have to say.

Saarbruecken Castle

By the castle, we found that there was an exhibit (link in German) of James Ensor's works. Our only knowledge of James Ensor comes from a song by They Might Be Giants, which, really only tell us that he is from Belgium and is a painter. The exhibit was free, so there was no hesitation on our part.

Meeting James Ensor

The exhibit focused on his pen and ink drawings, including those covering the life of Christ. Here is one representative example. Another, which both Jason and I really liked, was called "Mon Portrait en 1960" (My Portrait in 1960) and featured a drawing of a skeleton (Ensor was born in 1860). Artists are funny.

Coming away from the exhibit, we had expanded our knowledge of Mr. Ensor. We now know he did more than just paintings, had a bit of a humorous streak in him and we will be likely to recognize his work if we happen to come across it again. A nice accidental find.

Much like Dortmund and other mid-size European cities, Saarbruecken has a very nice shopping district. We spent some time walking through and stepping into stores here and there. We made one purchase: a ream A4 paper, which we should have purchased closer to the end of our shopping trip, but ended up carrying around with us for about an hour. Nothing like lugging around a pile of blank paper.

Saarbruecken is located in German state of Saarland. Saarland has been a bit of an industrial powerhouse for much of it's history, so following every war that Germany lost to France in the 20th century, France has taken the state as part of the spoils of war. On an equal number of occasions, the citizens of Saarland have later voted to rejoin Germany. Despite that, as you can see on the sign above for the Ensor exhibit, there is still a lot of French seen and heard as you walk through the streets. So, while no longer a part of France, the influence is still felt by the general proximity and the historical situation.