The Art in Amsterdam, a few notes

Amsterdam was the first place I went to in Europe, April of 1984, one day after graduating from my bachelor of fine arts at the University of Alberta. While the school wasn't strong in teaching drawing at the time, I did learn a lot from Norman Yates and David Cantine.  So, on my first trip to Europe, visiting the museums, the first thing that struck me about all the art that I saw, was that  the drawing was not detailed and picky but that the forms were articulated in space.  I still remember coming around the first corner in the Rijksmuseum and seeing Willem Claesz Heda's Still Life with Gilt Goblet.  I was riveted by the little silver highlights on the filigree objects, and mesmerized by the details.  Come to think of it, the painting is a sort of encyclopedia of still life textures.  It would be many years before I could understand much of what I was seeing, but it confirmed my direction in realism.

I was fortunate enough to revisit Amsterdam last week.  I was still drawn to the works by Claesz Heda.  And of course I'm always drawn to Vermeer.  

This time, the paint textures in Rembrandt surprised me.  He appears to glaze over impasto layers to create atmosphere which is unique in art.  Even Velasquez seems straight forward when his technique is compared to Rembrandt's.  The Members of the Cloth Merchants Syndicate is particularly complex.  Every hand, every face, seems in motion because of the layering technique.  The Portrait of the Old Man   in the Mauritshaus in Den Haag (where we went for the day) is different from this again.  Instead of a golden light, the man is painted with strong flesh tones, contrasted with shades of black and white in his clothes and collar.  The face is a mass of pinkish white blobs of paint, where you can see where Rembrandt scribbled with his brush end in the paint for texture.  The eyes are sunken black smudges surrounded by islands of built-up texture.  Again, the way the collar and cuffs of the man exist simultaneously as sheets of white paint and objects in space is extraordinary.  I could go on and probably will as these trips filled with art viewing overload one, and resonate long after.  

Walking along the Spiegelwartier, north of the Rijksmuseum, we were able to see some contemporary art galleries with some good work.   The display below spoke to me for obvious reasons.

The work at the Lieve Hemel Gallery was also of particular interest.  The show on display was of contemporary Dutch realists who were updating the traditions in interesting ways.