Ypres Faces

I've already covered my favourite place in Ypres on this blog. It is St George's Chapel.

The chapel was built after the First World War and so I am able to wholeheartedly approve of it, without any quibbles about whether it should have been left as it was. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I am not as certain about whether the fabric of the old town should have been rebuilt or, instead, left, as some proposed, in ruins - a warning to those thinking of embarking on future wars.

Anyway, no doubt to the relief of the town's inhabitants, Ypres was rebuilt, and, if you can leave aside the question of whether or not it should have been restored at all, you have to admit that what you see at Ypres is an extraordinary feat of restoration. It is also a very pleasant place to visit:

More importantly for someone with my particular obsessions, it is a place with many faces on its walls. Here are some of them:

Okay, this isn't really a face, but a faceless helmet; don't quibble so

 

I'd look fed up if they'd stuck plastic electricity boxes all round me

I think he's got a headache from all that weird blue light going across him

No plastic boxes, no blue light bar, this one looks relatively relaxed

 

The sculptor doesn't seem to me to have made much difference between Mozart and Beethoven - the latter simply looks more cross

This fellow appears on the building in the picture above

 

I have to admit that it took me a few visits to notice how many faces there are at Ypres. You have to look upwards - on the cloth hall alone there are dozens, way up near the roof - I'm still trying to decide whether they are all completely different or whether they start repeating:

 

 

If faces don't appeal to you there are always ships:

and pretty brickwork: