1.
Classicism
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Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. Classicism is a genre of philosophy, expressing itself in literature, architecture, art, and music, which has Ancient Greek and Roman sources. It was particularly expressed in the Neoclassicism of the Age of Enlightenment, Classicism is a recurrent tendency in the Late Antique period, and had a major revival in Carolingian and Ottonian art. Until that time the identification with antiquity had been seen as a history of Christendom from the conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine I. Renaissance classicism introduced a host of elements into European culture, including the application of mathematics and empiricism into art, humanism, literary and depictive realism, importantly it also introduced Polytheism, or paganism, and the juxtaposition of ancient and modern. The classicism of the Renaissance led to, and gave way to and this period sought the revival of classical art forms, including Greek drama and music. Opera, in its modern European form, had its roots in attempts to recreate the combination of singing and dancing with theatre thought to be the Greek norm, examples of this appeal to classicism included Dante, Petrarch, and Shakespeare in poetry and theatre. Tudor drama, in particular, modeled itself after classical ideals, studying Ancient Greek became regarded as essential for a well-rounded education in the liberal arts. They also began reviving plastic arts such as bronze casting for sculpture, for example, the painting of Jacques-Louis David which was seen as an attempt to return to formal balance, clarity, manliness, and vigor in art. Various movements of the period saw themselves as classical revolts against a prevailing trend of emotionalism and irregularity. The 20th century saw a number of changes in the arts, thus, both pre-20th century disciplines were labelled classical and modern movements in art which saw themselves as aligned with light, space, sparseness of texture, and formal coherence. Examples of classicist playwrights are Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine and Moliere, the influence of these French rules on playwrights in other nations is debatable. In the English theatre, Restoration playwrights such as William Wycherly and those of Shakespeares plays that seem to display the unities, such as The Tempest, probably indicate a familiarity with actual models from classical antiquity. Classicism in architecture developed during the Italian Renaissance, notably in the writings and designs of Leon Battista Alberti and this style quickly spread to other Italian cities and then to France, Germany, England, Russia and elsewhere. In the 16th century, Sebastiano Serlio helped codify the classical orders, building off of these influences, the 17th-century architects Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren firmly established classicism in England. For the development of classicism from the mid-18th-century onwards, see Neoclassical architecture, for Greek art of the 5th century B. C. E. See Classical art in ancient Greece and the Severe style Italian Renaissance painting and sculpture are marked by their renewal of classical forms, motifs and subjects. In the 15th century Leon Battista Alberti was important in theorizing many of the ideas for painting that came to a fully realised product with Raphaels School of Athens during the High Renaissance
2.
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam is the capital and most populous municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper,1,351,587 in the urban area, the city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. The metropolitan area comprises much of the part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe. Amsterdams name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the citys origin around a dam in the river Amstel, during that time, the city was the leading centre for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned, the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered a world city by the Globalization. The city is also the capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and seven of the worlds 500 largest companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th globally on quality of living for environment, the city was ranked 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Amsterdam seaport to this day remains the second in the country, famous Amsterdam residents include the diarist Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. After the floods of 1170 and 1173, locals near the river Amstel built a bridge over the river, the earliest recorded use of that name is in a document dated October 27,1275, which exempted inhabitants of the village from paying bridge tolls to Count Floris V. This allowed the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks, the certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam, Amsterdam is much younger than Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean there was already a settlement then, since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat. Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306, from the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League
3.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
4.
Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands
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Willem-Alexander is the King of the Netherlands. Willem-Alexander was born in Utrecht and is the oldest child of Beatrix of the Netherlands and he became Prince of Orange as heir apparent upon his mothers accession on 30 April 1980, and succeeded her following her abdication on 30 April 2013. He went to primary and secondary schools, served in the Royal Netherlands Navy. He married Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti in 2002 and they have three daughters, Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange, Princess Alexia, and Princess Ariane, Willem-Alexander is interested in sports and international water management issues. At the age of 49, he is currently the second youngest monarch in Europe after Felipe VI of Spain, Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand was born on 27 April 1967 in the University Hospital Utrecht, Now is University Medical Center Utrecht in Utrecht, Netherlands. He is the first child of Princess Beatrix and Prince Claus, and he was the first male Dutch royal baby since the birth of Prince Alexander in 1851, and the first immediate male heir since Alexanders death in 1884. From birth, Willem-Alexander has held the titles Prince of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange-Nassau and he was baptised as a member of the Dutch Reformed Church on 2 September 1967 in Saint Jacobs Church in The Hague. He had two brothers, Prince Friso and Prince Constantijn. He lived with his family at the castle Drakensteyn in the hamlet Lage Vuursche near Baarn from his birth until 1981 and his mother Beatrix became Queen of the Netherlands in 1980, after his grandmother Juliana abdicated. He then received the title of Prince of Orange as heir apparent to the throne of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander attended Nieuwe Baarnse Elementary School in Baarn from 1973 to 1979. After his military service from 1985 to 1987, Willem-Alexander studied History at Leiden University from 1987 onwards and his final thesis was on the Dutch response to Frances decision under President Charles de Gaulle to leave the NATOs integrated command structure. Willem-Alexander speaks English, Spanish and German in addition to his native Dutch, between secondary school and his university education, Willem-Alexander performed military service in the Royal Netherlands Navy from August 1985 until January 1987. He received his training at the Royal Netherlands Naval College and the frigates HNLMS Tromp and HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen, in 1988 he received additional training at the ship HNLMS Van Kinsbergen and became a lieutenant. As a reservist for the Royal Netherlands Navy, Willem-Alexander was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in 1995, Commander in 1997, Captain at Sea in 2001, and Commodore in 2005. As a reservist for the Royal Netherlands Army, he was made a Major in 1995, and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1997, Colonel in 2001, and Brigadier General in 2005. As a reservist for the Royal Netherlands Air Force, he was made Squadron Leader in 1995, as a reservist for the Royal Marechaussee, he was made Brigadier General in 2005. Before his investiture as king in 2013, Willem-Alexander was honorably discharged from the armed forces, the government declared that the head of state cannot be a serving member of the armed forces, since the government itself holds supreme command over the armed forces. As king, Willem-Alexander may choose to wear a uniform with royal insignia
5.
Dutch guilder
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The Dutch guilder or fl. was the currency of the Netherlands from the 17th century until 2002, when it was replaced by the euro. Between 1999 and 2002, the guilder was officially a national subunit of the euro, however, physical payments could only be made in guilder, as no euro coins or banknotes were available. The Netherlands Antillean guilder is still in use in Curaçao and Sint Maarten, in 2004, the Surinamese guilder was replaced by the Surinamese dollar. The Dutch name gulden was a Middle Dutch adjective meaning golden, the symbol ƒ or fl. for the Dutch guilder was derived from another old currency, the florin, called the florin in English. The exact exchange rate, still relevant for old contracts and for exchange of the old currency for euros at the bank, is 2.20371 Dutch guilders for 1 euro. Inverted, this gives EUR0.453780 for NLG1, before the introduction of the first guilder, there were regional and foreign golden coins that were likely referred to as gulden in Dutch. The first internationally accepted Dutch coin called gulden dates from 1517, even before that, the County of Holland had minted golden coins since 1378. An early guilder, a 10. 61-gram.910 silver coin, was minted by the States of Holland and this guilder was divided into 20 stuivers, each of 8 duiten or 16 penningen. The guilder gradually replaced other silver coin circulating in the United Netherlands, the florijn, the daalder, the rijksdaalder, the silver ducat. Between 1810 and 1814, the Netherlands was annexed to France, after the Napoleonic wars, the Kingdom of the Netherlands readopted the guilder. In 1817 it became decimalised, with one guilder equal to 100 cents, until 1948, the plural of cent used on coins was centen, after that it was cent. The Netherlands was initially on a standard, with the guilder equal to 605.61 milligrams of fine gold or 9.615 grams of fine silver. In 1840, the standard was adjusted to 9.45 grams. In 1875, the Netherlands adopted a standard with 1 guilder equal to 604.8 milligrams of fine gold. The gold standard was suspended between 1914 and 1925 and was abandoned in 1936, following the German occupation, on 10 May 1940, the guilder was pegged to the Reichsmark at a rate of 1 guilder =1.5 Reichsmark. This rate was reduced to 1.327 on 17 July of the same year, the liberating Allied forces set an exchange rate of 2.652 guilders =1 U. S. dollar, which became the peg for the guilder within the Bretton Woods system. In 1949, the peg was changed to 3.8 guilders =1 dollar, in 1961, the guilder was revalued to 3.62 guilders =1 dollar, a change approximately in line with that of the German mark. After 1967 guilders were made from nickel instead of silver, in 2002, the guilder was replaced by the euro at an exchange rate of 2.20371 guilders =1 Euro
6.
Artus Quellinus the Elder
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Artus Quellinus also known as Artus Quellijn, Artus Quellinus I or Artus Quellinus the Elder was a Flemish sculptor. He is regarded as the most important representative of the Baroque in sculpture in the Southern Netherlands and his work had a major influence on the development of sculpture in Northern Europe. Artus Quellinus the Elder was born into an artistic family and he was the son of the respected Antwerp sculptor Erasmus Quellinus I and Elisabeth van Uden. His brothers became prominent artists, Erasmus was a painter and Hubertus was an engraver and painter and his sister Cornelia married his father’s pupil, the sculptor Pieter Verbrugghen the Elder. Artus Quellinus received his first training from his father, in the period from 1635 to 1639 he trained in Rome in the studio of his compatriot François Duquesnoy. He spent time in Lyon together with the Flemish painter Laureys Franck and was in there with the Dutch engraver Nicolaas van Helt Stockade. He returned to Antwerp in 1639 and became member of the local Guild of Saint Luke in 1640-41, in 1640 he took over the workshop of his father and married Marguerite Verdussen. He worked in Amsterdam in the years 1646 and 1647 and also spent time in Sweden and he won commissions in Amsterdam and, from 1650 onwards, worked for fifteen years on the new city hall together with the lead architect Jacob van Campen. Now called the Royal Palace on the Dam, this construction project and he returned to work in Antwerp in 1658 and remained active mainly in this city until his death. Many of these students would become leading sculptors in their own right who would spread the late Baroque style across Europe. Artus Quellinus brought the classicizing Baroque style of François Duquesnoy to his native Antwerp on his return from Rome in 1639 and he thus introduced into Flemish sculpture the Baroque style developed by François Duquesnoy, which was based on classical sculpture. This style was less expressive than the Baroque style of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, as Artus Quellinus I mainly worked on monumental commissions, most of his work is to be found in situ with as principal locations the cities of Brussels, Antwerp and Amsterdam. Artus Quellinus I also produced small-scale sculptures such as ivory-carvings and his work on the city hall of Amsterdam was very influential. It was popularised by his brother Hubertus, who engraved many of his works in the city hall, in the Dutch Republic Artus Quellinus I was further noted for funerary monuments and portrait busts. Another tomb monument he made in Germany was that for Frederick III, the portraits combine the classical style with late Baroque devices such as the inclusion of the arms of the sitter. His sculptures were so popular in Amsterdam that the leading Dutch writers Joost van den Vondel and his oeuvre after his return to Antwerp in 1658 is less well known. Media related to Artus Quellinus I at Wikimedia Commons
7.
Govert Flinck
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Govert Teuniszoon Flinck was a Dutch painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Here Flinck was joined by Jacob Backer, and the companionship of a youth determined like himself to be an artist only confirmed his passion for painting. Amongst the neighbours of Jacobszon at Leeuwarden were the sons and relations of Rombertus van Uylenburgh, other members of the same family lived at Amsterdam, cultivating the arts either professionally or as amateurs. The pupils of Lambert probably gained some knowledge of Rembrandt by intercourse with the Ulenburgs, for many years Flinck laboured on the lines of Rembrandt, following that masters style in all the works which he executed between 1636 and 1648. With aspirations as a painter, however, he looked to the swelling forms and grand action of Peter Paul Rubens. Flincks relations with Cleves became in time very important and he was introduced to the court of the Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg, who possessed the Duchy and who married in 1646 Louisa of Orange. He obtained the patronage of John Maurice of Nassau, who was stadtholder of Cleves in 1649. In 1652 a citizen of Amsterdam, Flinck married in 1656 an heiress, Sophie van der Houven, Flinck died in Amsterdam on 2 February 1660. The earliest of Flincks authentic pieces is a portrait of a lady, dated 1636 and his first subject picture is the Blessing of Jacob, in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Both are thoroughly Rembrandtesque in effect as well as in vigour of touch, the four civic guards of 1642, and the twelve musketeers with their president in an arm-chair, in the Stadhuis, Amsterdam, are fine specimens of composed portrait groups. Flinck here painted his own likeness to the left in a doorway, the mannered period of Flinck is amply illustrated in the Manius Curius Dentatus eating Turnips before the Samnite Envoys, and Solomon receiving Wisdom, in the Palace on the Dam at Amsterdam. Here it is that Flinck shows most defects, being faulty in arrangement, gaudy in tint, flat and shallow in execution, Flinck was unable to finish more than the sketches. After his death Rembrandt was asked to one of the commissions, and produced his last great history picture, the Conspriracy of Claudius Civilis. In the same year he received an acknowledgment from the town council of Cleves. Of several pictures which were painted for the Great Elector, none are preserved except the Expulsion of Hagar in the Berlin museum. Flinck at WGA Works and literature on Govert Flinck at PubHist This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
8.
Jacob Jordaens
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Jacob Jordaens was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and tapestry designer known for his history paintings, genre scenes and portraits. After Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, he was the leading Flemish Baroque painter of his day, unlike those contemporaries he never travelled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their intellectual and courtly aspirations. In fact, except for a few trips to locations in the Low Countries. As well as being a painter, he was a prominent designer of tapestries. Jordaens main artistic influences, besides Rubens and the Brueghel family, were northern Italian painters such as Jacopo Bassano, Paolo Veronese, and Caravaggio. Jacob Jordaens was born on 19 May 1593, the first of eleven children, to the wealthy linen merchant Jacob Jordaens Sr. little is known about Jordaens early education. It can be assumed that he received the advantages of the education provided for children of his social class. This assumption is supported by his handwriting, his competence in French. Like Rubens, he studied under Adam van Noort, who was his only teacher, during this time Jordaens lived in Van Noorts house in the Everdijstraat and became very close to the rest of the family. After eight years of training with Van Noort, he enrolled in the Guild of St. Luke as a waterschilder and this medium was often used for preparing tapestry cartoons in the seventeenth century. Although examples of his earliest watercolour works are no longer extant, in the same year as his entry into the guild,1616, he married his teachers eldest daughter, Anna Catharina van Noort, with whom he had three children. In 1618, Jordaens bought a house in Hoogstraat and he would then later buy the adjoining house to expand his household and workspace in 1639, mimicking Rubens house built two decades earlier. He lived and worked here until his death in 1678, Jordaens never made the traditional trip to Italy to study classical and Renaissance art. Despite this, he made efforts to study prints or works of Italian masters available in northern Europe. For example, Jordaens is known to have studied Titian, Veronese, Caravaggio and his commissions frequently came from wealthy local Flemish patrons and clergy, although later in his career he worked for courts and governments across Europe. Besides a large output of oil paintings he was a prolific tapestry designer. Jordaens importance can also be seen by his number of pupils, among them were his cousin and his son Jacob. Like Rubens and other artists at that time, Jordaens studio relied on his assistants, not many of these pupils went on to fame themselves, however a position in Jordaens studio was highly desirable for young artists from across Europe
9.
Jan Lievens
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Jan Lievens was a Dutch painter, usually associated with Rembrandt, working in a similar style. According to Arnold Houbraken, Jan was the son of Lieven Hendriksze, a tapestry worker and he was sent to Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam at about the age of 10 for two full years. After that he began his career as an independent artist, at about the age of 12 in Leiden and he became something of a celebrity because of his talent at such a young age. Specifically, his copy of Democriet & Herakliet by Cornelis van Haarlem, and this attracted the attention of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, around 1620, who bought a life-size painting of a young man reading by the light of a turf-fire. He gave this painting in turn to the English Ambassador, who presented it to James I and this was the reason why, when Lievens was 31, he was invited to the British court. When he returned from England via Calais, he settled in Antwerp, where he married Suzanna Colyn de Nole, in this period he won many commissions from royalty, mayors, and city halls. According to Houbraken, a Continence of Scipio was painted for the Leiden city hall, a poem by Joost van den Vondel was written in honor of a painting he made for the mayors office of the Amsterdam city hall in 1661. According to the Amsterdams Historisch Museum, this piece survives and depicts Brinno raised on a shield with the Cananefates, Lievens collaborated and shared a studio with Rembrandt van Rijn from about 1626 to 1631. Their competitive collaboration, represented in two dozen paintings, drawings and etchings, was intimate enough to cause difficulties in the attribution of works from this period. Lievens showed talent for painting in a scale, and his dramatic compositions suggest the influence of the Caravaggisti. In Constantijn Huygens assessment, Lievens was more inventive, yet less expressive than Rembrandt, the two men split in 1631, when Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam and Lievens to England. In 1656 Rembrandt still owned paintings by his former friend, during his time in England Lievens painted a portrait for Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel, and became influenced by the works of Anthony van Dyck. Lievens worked in Antwerp, and cooperated with Adriaen Brouwer, after being a court painter in The Hague and Berlin, he returned to Amsterdam in 1655. After his first wife died he married a sister of Jan de Bray in 1648, after 1672, the Rampjaar Lievens had increasing financial difficulties and his family voided all claims of inheritance on his death due to his debts. Rembrandt, His Life, His Work, His Time, trans. from the Dutch by Elizabeth Willems-Treeman
10.
Ferdinand Bol
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Ferdinand Bol was a Dutch artist, etcher, and draftsman. Although his surviving work is rare, it displays Rembrandts influence, like his master, Bol favored historical subjects, portraits, numerous self-portraits, the street Ferdinand Bolstraat in Amsterdam was named after Bol, as was FEBO, a chain of Dutch walk-up restaurants. Ferdinand was born in Dordrecht as the son of a surgeon, after 1630 he studied with Rembrandt, living in his house in Sint Antoniesbreestraat, then a fashionable street and area for painters, jewellers, architects, and many Flemish and Jewish immigrants. In 1641 Bol started his own studio, around this time, Bol was a popular and successful painter. His palette had lightened, his figures possessed greater elegance, Bol delivered four paintings for the two mansions of the brothers Trip, originally also from Dordrecht. Bols first wife died in 1660, in 1669 Bol married for the second time to Anna van Erckel, widow of the treasurer of the Admiralty, and apparently retired from painting at that point in his life. In 1672 the couple moved to Keizersgracht 672, then a newly designed part of the city, Bol served as a governor in a Home for Lepers. Bol died a few weeks after his wife, on Herengracht, where his son, probably his best known painting is a portrait of Elisabeth Bas, the wife of the naval officer Joachim Swartenhondt and an innkeeper near the Dam square. This and many other of his paintings would in the 19th century be falsely attributed to Rembrandt, Ferdinand Bol page at the Rijksmuseums web site with the famous portrait of Elisabeth Bas. Works and literature at PubHist Portrait of a gentlemen Two paintings by Bol for the townhall, click verder to see the second one Ferdinand Bol
11.
Rijksmonument
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A rijksmonument is a national heritage site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. To be designated, a place must be over 50 years old, there are around 51,000 designated rijksmonuments in the Netherlands. The program was started during the Hague Convention in 1954, the current legislation governing the monuments is the Monumentenwet van 1988. The organization responsible for caring for the monuments, which used to be called Monumentenzorg, was recently renamed, and is now called Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed. In June 2009, the Court of The Hague decided that individual purchasers of buildings that were listed as rijksmonuments would be exempt from paying transfer tax, previously this exemption had only applied to legal entities. Many Dutch tourist attractions are rijksmonuments, such as castles or windmills, among the rijksmonuments are also many churches. A provincial monument is a monument designated by a province, in the Netherlands there are only two provinces that assign monuments, North Holland and Drenthe. The designation allows the provinces to protect the monuments and are a base for the regulation of subsidy for restoring the monuments, a municipal monument is a monuments designated by a municipality. A municipal monument is not of importance but it is important for the region or city/village. List of Rijksmonuments List of heritage registers Monumentenregister, official database of heritage sites Monumenten. nl
12.
Dam Square
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Dam Square or Dam is a town square in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. Its notable buildings and frequent events make it one of the most well-known and important locations in the city and the country. Dam Square lies in the center of Amsterdam, approximately 750 meters south of the main transportation hub, Centraal Station. It is roughly rectangular in shape, stretching about 200 meters from west to east and it links the streets Damrak and Rokin, which run along the original course of the Amstel River from Centraal Station to Muntplein and the Munttoren. The Dam also marks the endpoint of the other well-traveled streets Nieuwendijk, a short distance beyond the northeast corner lies the main red-light district, de Wallen. On the west end of the square is the neoclassical Royal Palace, beside it are the 15th-century Gothic Nieuwe Kerk and the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. The National Monument, a stone pillar designed by J. J. P. Oud and erected in 1956 to memorialize the victims of World War II, also overlooking the plaza are the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky and the upscale department store De Bijenkorf. These various attractions have turned the Dam into a tourist zone, the Dam derives its name from its original function, a dam on the Amstel River, hence also the name of the city. Built in approximately 1270, the dam formed the first connection between the settlements on the sides of the river, as the dam was gradually built up to it became wide enough for a town square, which remained the core of the town developing around it. Dam Square as it exists today grew out of what was originally two squares, the dam, called Middeldam, and Plaetse, an adjacent plaza to the west. A large fish market arose where ships moored at the dam to load and unload goods, the area became a centre not only of commercial activity but also of the government, as the site of Amsterdams town hall. As a market square, the Dam had a house that can be seen in some old paintings. It was demolished in 1808 by order of Louis Bonaparte who, upon taking up residence in the newly converted Royal Palace, complained that his view was obstructed. The Damrak, or the mouth of the Amstel River, was partially filled in the 19th century, since then. The new land made room for the Beurs van Zocher, an exchange that was built in 1837. After the stock moved to the Beurs van Berlage in 1903. In its place, De Bijenkorf department store has stood since 1914, in 1856, a war memorial named De Eendracht was unveiled inside the square before King William III
