Ruth Leon recommends… One Hundred Masterpieces – Rijksmuseum
Ruth Leon recommendsOne Hundred Masterpieces – Rijksmuseum
I became mesmerised by these 1-minute videos about Rembrandt’s paintings in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. At the end of each you can just click to see the next so you can watch as many or as few as you have time for.
The voice of the curator is so gentle, as well as so informative, that you’ve learned more in a minute than you might in hours of actually looking at the painting. Each one, though, makes you want to stand in front of the real thing and make use of your newfound knowledge of the painting and the painter.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, born 1606, usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in all three media, he is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art and the most important in Dutch art history.
It is usually assumed that he used himself as his model in so many of his paintings to save money on hiring a model. I think he was just fascinated with the contours of his own face, loved dressing up, and found it convenient to have the subject of his paintings close at hand whenever he felt like painting.
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