Sample Chapter (continued)
...Instead, the Dutch were choosing to celebrate social and cultural figures, often those who have made a positive contribution by serving others. This statue in Deventer illustrated the pattern: it was a six-foot bronze figure of Albert Schweitzer, a German theologian with many talents. Among other things, Schweitzer was a gifted organist—who, at the age of 30, decided to become a missionary doctor. He studied medicine, and in 1913, went to the isolated African village of Lambarene, in the French colony of Gabon, where he established a hospital. In addition to his humanitarian work, Schweitzer wrote extensively on topics of morality and religion. The base of the statue in Deventer carried the words of the basic tenet of his ethical philosophy: “Eerbied Voor Het Leven” (“Reverence for Life”). This is the idea that all living things, from people down to ants, have value, and that we ought to try to respect this divine spark in our actions.
Another feature of Dutch statues is that they often commemorate humble local figures, a person that no one outside the town has ever heard of. In other words, fame is not a necessary requirement to be immortalized.
In the seaside town of Egmond, which I visited on another trip, there is a statue of a local fisherman, Jacob Glas. He is dressed in working overalls, holds a coil of rope in one hand, and is smoking a pipe. Why is this roughly dressed, elderly fisherman from the 19th century being honored? He was a member of the local volunteer lifeboat association, the group that went out in storms to the aid of the crews of stranded ships. Jacob was especially notable because he worked on inventing the first life vest, a crude apparatus made out of cork pieces sewn together. The statue has him wearing one of these bulky life vests wrapped around his chest.
There’s another difference in Holland’s ‘social’ statues, as compared to the military and political ones of other countries. The pose of the person being commemorated is informal, relaxed. When presidents and generals are featured in other countries, they are portrayed striking, well, pompous poses: the figures stand with chin high and chest out, and their gaze is firm. The Dutch figures are portrayed with a more sociable mien, as if they were greeting others, or listening to them, or simply relaxing.
An especially remarkable illustration of this point is the statue of Alida Bosshardt, one of the activists in the Salvation Army who worked during the privations of World War II and post-war times. Alida was especially active in helping prostitutes, and for this reason, her statue is located near the red-light district of Amsterdam. Actually, you can hardly call it a statue, because her bronze figure, crafted wearing a long, bulky dress, is not standing but is seated on an ordinary-seeming bronze bench right on the sidewalk beside the canal. There is space on this bench for pedestrians to sit down beside her, and, as one can see from the polished brass spots on the weathered green metal of her figure, many people sit down next to this kindly woman, whose wrinkled face bears tiny spectacles, and run their hands along her arm....
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