Panorama

Rotterdam is freezing, windy and wet, and while I like surprises, I'm dearly hoping the pre-lunch one will be indoors and warm. The Dutchman's odd explanation of travelling exhibition at my curiosity doesn't really get the juices flowing, but I accuse him of being totally Indian when he agrees to my suggestion of leaving the car with the valet at the Hilton as we pretend to partake of something necessary in their haloed premises while sneaking out the back door, after two failed attempts to snare parking. The valet smilingly takes the car and we pretend business before edging out the side door for a quick dash in the rain. JP has to drag me back as I hurl past the door and I'm confused as we enter into a small building called Panorama. We seem to be in a gallery. Ok, Dutch painters, I can do this. I'm reminded of the sunset in Budapest a few days ago and the magic yellow blue combination of the sky, which then, had made me think of the light and colours in so many Dutch canvasses. You have to be able to see a sky that colour to paint it.

It's the aptly entitled Panorama that's the surprise, and without much ado, we head straight for the piece de resistance. I walk into the room and am gobsmacked. I mean, quite literally, my gob is well and truly smacked and falls open in awe and wonderment. I'm standing on a shaded deck atop a sand dune. A sand dune littered with anchors, fishing nets, lost boot as dunes are wont to be. A 360 degree turn absorbs the city behind us and the open sea in front of us. Scheveningen in 1881. I continue to gape as I rotate again. Then once more for good measure, this time more slowly, taking in the details of the church spire in the distance, the woman hanging up her washing outside her home, the beached fishing boats, the rolling waves, the horizon receding into the distance. I swear, I can smell the sea, hear it. The shrieking gulls give way to commentary in Dutch. Unsurprisingly, my body is drawn seaward, and I leave the town behind me as I savour the open breeze and endless horizon. The experience is surreal. The painting magnificent. The hidden glass dome that sits astride the roof allows in natural light, which brings this behemoth to life. Everyday, it's a different day at the beach, given the season and the weather. It's uncanny, but this 14 m tall, 120 m canvass wrapped around you at a distance of 14 m away, makes you feel like you're standing outside, surveying life in the 1880's.

Hendrik Willem Mesdag painted it with assistance from his wife Sientje Mesdag-van Houten and 4 other painters in 4 months. How, I do not know. It's alive and makes you want to sit down by the seaside, have a drink and get philosophical about life as one does when faced with nature in her purest form. The crying gulls meld into the sound of the waves as the English commentary tells me that the panorama was sketched on a glass cylinder that was then lit from within and this is what was used to trace the massive pieces of canvas surrounding us. Ingenious, but just imagining them actually executing the piece leaves me breathless. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall, to watch them at work, the sketch thrown all around, bits of paint filled in, perspectives checked and double checked. It's a masterpiece. I have seen photographic panoramas before and been somewhat impressed, but this just takes your breath away. It has the depth and dimension you can only get from paint and canvass and the texture makes it more gritty, more real. You forget it's bitterly cold and wet outside and wallow in the bracing air of the sea instead, the pace slower, more relaxed as you unwind and let nature soothe you. Your thoughts wafting around your head as you contemplate the horizon in the far distance.

It's startling when one of the guides steps over the rail to walk the 14 m to the canvas, destroying the illusion... it makes you cross to have the magic vanish, but oddly enough, a few minutes later as your gazing out, the artists mastery over depth and perspective sweeps over you and the beach stretches for miles ahead, the waves rolling into the far distance. It's truly uncanny how they manage to create such a strong sense of the real in such a confined area, munificent size of the painting notwithstanding. True to the art form, the top and bottom of the paintings are hidden to perpetuate the illusion of not having any boundaries

I've never really thought of Rotterdam as place to have on my list to visit... but I stand corrected. Eventually, I let JP tear me away so we can go for lunch (the original plan!), and make a mental note to visit in the summer to do a repeat... different light, different ingredients (lunch...!) and a quick abseil down the tower. This city rocks! Our sneaky side door entrance goes unnoticed and we claim our car with panache, sans payment. Such lovely people, these Dutch....