While in an art museum in the Netherlands last fall I noticed a sign on a cork board advertising a special Exhibit at The Hermitage Museum of Amsterdam. I was excited to see that it was a show of work by an nineteenth century artist whose work I have long been drawn to, Caspar David Friedrich. I was privileged to see 6 drawings and 9 paintings by the artist and spent a long time in front
The Netherlands
Tag/Topic Archives
Magritte’s La Reproduction
In the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the Rotterdam art museum, I saw many good works of art last fall including the interesting piece by René Magritte entitled La Reproduction Interdite. In English, the title translates to “Not to be Reproduced.” Magritte is one of the surrealist painters that I appreciate. I am intrigued by the way in which he see the world and the interest
I Spy Sint Jan Ceiling
I pointed my camera to the ceiling of Sint Jan Cathedral (Saint John) to get a detail shot of a rib vault. A man approached me and began to talk about the ceiling, first in Dutch
‘s-Hertogenbosch, Neeffs, and Bosch
My day in Den Bosch began by going to the Bosch museum (Noordbrabants Museum, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands). The museum was small, but had a number of paintings by or in the same style as the famous artist from the city, Hieronymus Bosch.
Of the older paintings in the Noordbrandts collection, several contained buildings that were cut in half resulting in the interior of the
The Goldfinch
The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands is designed with many protruding panels giving a room more wall space then it might otherwise have. While walking around the museum, I looked with anticipation a
Authenticity or Accuracy
There is a thread of thought that scoffs images, stories, and other communications which tell a story in a historically inaccurate way. Those who follow this thought pattern would tear apart Pieter Brueghel II’s Census at Bethlehem completed in 1605...
Variations on a Theme Part 2
While walking through the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, the painting, Jerusalem (Golgatha, Consummatum Est, Crucifixion) by Jean-Léon Gérôme caught my eye. It did not catch my eye because of the style, but due to the treatment of the subject. This is an interesting painting because it is the classical crucifixion theme redone in a way that I have not seen before. The cro
Variations on a Theme Part 1
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 ar
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 conven
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