Art has the power to teach us something new about the mundane in life. Sometimes art portrays the beautiful, sometimes the ugly. This past fall when I had the opportunity to walk through several museums in the Netherlands and Germany, I came across four paintings that presented the biblical account of the crucifixion of Christ in unexpected or at least different ways. They present four artist perspectives from painters who lived in four different centuries. Perhaps the oldest Crucifixion image that entranced me while visiting museums last fall was a painting done in 1512 by Hans Baldu...
The Netherlands
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Circular Road
I found this interesting sculpture, Circular Road by Robert Long, in the Kröller-Müller Museum last September (2008). It is a simple abstract sculpture that has a name which guides the viewer’s interpretation of the abstract form. My eye follows the pieces around in a road that takes the long way to the point of destination. The road is a journey and not the path of convenience? Perhaps the road is full of dead ends and places to turn around?
Eeckhout and Rembrandt: An Intimate Gathering
While wondering through Het Rembrandthuis Museum, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands last autumn, a painting caught my eye. The walls of the Rembrandt House were covered with paintings salon style, and although it was hard for the eye to isolate any image, this particular painting caught my attention and held it. The painting, The Last Supper, by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1664) , was on loan to The Rembrandt House Museum from the Rijksmuseum. The painting resembles Rembrandt’s style because the artist was not only a pupil but also a friend of Rembrandt. Another interesting thing about...
Escher: Similar Interests
While in The Hague, Netherlands last autumn, I took a few hours to look into the Escher Museum (Escher in het Paleis or Escher in the Palace). In the past I have not regarded M.C. Escher too highly, consequently I was surprised at how much I enjoyed seeing the work. I discovered how the following things that fascinated Escher also interest me: cylindrical reflections, patterns, and objects transitioning or changing within an image.
Stages of Mondrian
This past fall I had the opportunity to see several early Piet Mondrian paintings in the Gemente Museum (The Hague, The Netherlands). Although he is most famous for his later simplified Neoplastic art such as Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red, 1937-42 (on the left), I prefer his earlier works that have a concrete subject and yet contain a graph like pattern to them.