Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art (oh & A. Adams!)
This past Saturday morning, my husband and I visited the Phoenix Art Museum to see the very famous “Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art” exhibit. Part of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum is undergoing rennovation, so this exhibit has hit the road and is traveling around the world. I had to purchase our tickets about 8 weeks ago, specifing the date and time, since it is a popular exhibit. Dispite the crowds we really did enjoy the exhibit. We saw Rembrandt’s Self-portrait as the Apostle Paul, and his portrait of his wife, Saskia van Uylenburgh. Brent has a conspiracy theory about the Saskia portrait. I saw him staring at it & approached the painting. He was freaking out! He was like, “Look! There’s an image of a man in the background with a dagger pointed at her!” I sort-of saw what he was talking about it, but he was very insistant that he could see it. But I was like,” Um, Rembrandt painted that when he got engaged to her, so I don’t think he would purposely paint a man with a daggar in the background.” So then he thougth maybe Rembrandt had started paiting something & didn’t like it. So he used the same canvass & painted her portrait over it. Hmmm….
I liked Rembrandt’s sketchings. There were 2 of “Christ Presented to the People,” sort of a first draft & then a final draft. The final draft was so powerful. I love his ‘religious’ paintings & drawings. They bring the Bible to life!
And although I’m not a huge floral painting fan, I did like Rachel Ruysch’s “Still Life with Flowers” for a few reasons: 1) The Dutch flowers she choose are some of my favorite flowers. 2) She wasn’t looking at an arragement, she created the arrangement as she painted. 3) She had an intimate knowledge of botany because of her father being a professor of anatomy & botany, so her painting were very detailed. 4) She was only one of twenty-five women who were active painters of the 17th century – a very small number compared to her male counterparts. 5) She had 10 children & still painted. 6) She was a court painter for Johann Wilhelm. 7) It’s a pretty cool painting.
One cool treat for me was that we caught the exhibit of probably my favorite photographer, Ansel Adams. The exhibit was called “Modern by Nature: Ansel Adams in the 1930s.” I guess I really like his stuff because I have lived around & explored a lot of what he photographed, i.e. The San Francisco Bay Area & Yosemite!
All in all a fun time!
