Unless you have a degree in art history, one exhibition of pre-19th-century paintings can look much like the next. So we talked to Pieter Roelofs, curator at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, to get a greater sense of the Art Gallery of NSW’s summer blockbuster Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age: masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum – one masterpiece at a time.
1. This is arguably the most interesting painting in the exhibition
Little did painter Aelbert Cuyp know that this portrait would come to represent the dark heart of the Dutch ‘golden age’ – the fact: that the wealth that allowed art in that area to flourish was based on trade (including the slave trade) and colonisation and cheap/unpaid labour. Here we see an unknown Dutch merchant and his wife, and an Indonesian man who is presumably his slave, against a backdrop of the Dutch colony of Batavia (modern-day Jakarta). The merchant is pointing at a fleet of ships, indicating that at least one of these is his.
This is one of the few paintings in Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age that bear witness to slavery, and Rijksmuseum curator Pieter Roelofs says that a painting like this makes contemporary Dutch audiences uncomfortable: “[Slavery] is something we as a country are not proud of.” The Rijksmuseum is, in fact, currently organising an exhibition on the topic of slavery. “We really believe that we, as a national museum, have to tell the story about that; it’s very easy to show the ‘greatest hits of Dutch painting’ but it’s very important to tell the full story – including this very negative aspect.”
When the Rijksmuseum re-opened in 2013, after an extensive refurbishment, one of the key changes was the labelling of works like Aelbert Cuyp’s portrait: “We were very critical of our existing terminology. In the past, portrait labels wouldn’t even mention this Indonesian man. We are very conscious about that, and about how we talk about Dutch history in general. We don’t use words like ‘discovery’ anymore, for example.”
2. This is probably the most famous painting in the exhibition
Johannes Vermeer is a giant amongst painters – and yet scarcely more than 30 of his works are in existence today. ‘Woman Reading a Letter’ is emblematic of his style – meticulous composition and brushwork; idiosyncratic approach to colour; virtuosic command of light – but also reveals a popular precept of 17th-century Dutch art theory: the ‘golden ratio’ or ‘golden mean’ – an organising of space and proportions according to supposedly ‘divine geometry’.
Who is this woman? People have speculated that it’s Vermeer’s wife, but we don’t know. We can surmise certain things from the composition: the map in the background suggests that the letter she is reading is from someone abroad. She’s also part of the middle class, because this kind of jacket is in fashion – and you can see a string of pearls on her dresser.
3. This self-portrait was a low point in Rembrandt’s life
When he painted himself as the ‘apostle Paul’ (complete with sword, book, and prison bars in the background), Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn was in his mid-fifties, and recently bankrupt. He was also slipping into ignominy, thanks to a new ‘avant garde’ direction in his art that was unpopular with audiences and patrons. “It’s an almost rough, sculpted style of painting,” says Roelofs (to see what WAS in fashion when he painted this, go to the first room in the exhibition and check out Karel Dujardin’s self-portrait). “When you look at Rembrandt’s earlier paintings, they’re quite refined.” This ‘fall from grace’ must have been quite the jolt for the artist: “In the 1630s and 1640s he was the most important portrait painter in Amsterdam,” says Roelofs, “and anyone who was of a certain position wanted to be portrayed by Rembrandt.”
4. This painting was meant to remind its owner of mortality – and God
Religion was a key aspect of Dutch society (particularly Protestantism, though the country enjoyed freedom of religion), and even in great wealth – or perhaps despite it – virtue and piety were core values. Paintings such as this – in the ‘vanitas’ style – were designed to remind their owners of the brevity of life, the inevitability of judgement day, and thus the importance of being morally upright. The skulls represent death, the hourglass and candle represent brevity of life, the flowers reflect transience.
5. There’s more than ‘tulip mania’ to this painting
Before there was the housing bubble, there was the tulip bubble: a mad dash for the exotic bulbs that drove prices sky high and made them a coveted status symbol. Just before the market crashed in February 1637, particularly rare bulbs were selling for the equivalent of ten times a skilled worker’s annual wage. This painting, completed almost 30 years after the crash, nevertheless depicts one of the most prized species of that time: the ‘Semper Augustus’ tulip (top right). The flowers around it, though they might look like an eruption of nature, are carefully conceived – in fact, this posey would never have existed in its time, as the various species didn’t bloom at the same time.
But it’s the insects that you should particularly pay attention to. This painting came shortly after the invention of the microscope, and the revelation of a hitherto unobserved ‘microcosmos’. “When people saw how unbelievably detailed and well-constructed insects were, they started to believe that God’s creation was reflected in these tiny little animals – and the appreciation of these creatures totally changed.”
Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age: masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum runs until February 18 at the Art Gallery of NSW.
Check out our hit list of the best art to see this month.