112 DECEMBER 2017
IMAGES COURTESY OF RIJKSMUSEUMd’Hondecoeter became an expert in painting birdlife; Ruisdael was
known for his skies; Steen for his domestic scenes.
“Everything was worth depicting; they began to focus on everyday
life, and realism was the main goal,” Roelofs says. “That was
unprecedented and it wasn’t understood by other nations. The Italians
would laugh, saying: ‘This is not about religion, this is not about the
high arts, it’s low art.’ Pop culture 1620! The idea Vermeer might make a
painting of a girl pouring milk into a bowl in a corner of a kitchen –
what is that? It’s ridiculous; it’s not Diana or Zeus. They opened up a
new door to a completely different kind of art.”
The stars of the Golden Age are Rembrandt and
Vermeer. Rembrandt became a versatile and prolific
painter; a famous and wealthy man during much of
his life but who died destitute in 1669. Acclaimed for his
portraiture, Rembrandt’s most highly regarded is
Self-portrait as the Apostle Paul (1661). “We only have two
Rembrandt self-portraits in the Rijksmuseum and this
will be one of the spectacular paintings in the Rembrandt
room,” says Roelofs of the seven paintings and 16
etchings that will be loaned to Sydney.
Wander through Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, the 1885
art gallery built as a cathedral to worship the arts, and it is obvious where
the blockbusters are. Simply follow the crowds standing before
Rembrandt’s The Night Watch (1642), his self-portraits and Vermeer’s
evocative The Milkmaid (circa 1660) and Woman Reading a Letter (c i rca 1663).
A breathtakingly still, quiet work, Woman Reading a Letter conveys none
of the chaos that must have dominated Vermeer’s home, where he worked
among his 11 surviving children although it does perhaps explain his
modest output: only 35 paintings in his young life’s work (he died in at 43
in 1675). This diminutive painting draws in the viewer, and art specialists
have for centuries debated the contents of the letter that so engross its
reader. Tragic news from abroad? The maritime trade may have been
lucrative but it carried a high risk of fatality at sea. Perhaps it is word from
From left: Woman Reading a Letter (1663) by Johannes Vermeer; Still life with Flowers in a Glass Vase (1665–70) by Jan Davidsz. de Heem;
The Westernmost Bays of the South Aisle of the Mariakerk in Utrecht (circa 1640–55) by Pieter Saenredam.
the father of her unborn child, although her seemingly pregnant form is
also contested. “This painting makes clear how important light was to
Vermeer, the light and colour change from the left hand side to the right;
whereas Rembrandt was more about rough, broad strokes, a swift way of
painting. Vermeer was interested in detail,” says Roelofs. “What’s going
on in the painting? It encourages us to think; that’s a nice aspect as well.”
Vermeer wasn’t the only artist to depict domestic scenes. Jan Steen
was renowned for his storytelling and everyday scenes and rarely failed
to throw in a moral or two warning burghers to behave.
In contrast to the domestic paintings are the still lifes
of the Golden Age, painted to show off both the owner’s
knowledge of exotic goods such as pepper and salt and
the artist’s skill in depicting them.
It is astounding to think the Golden Age lasted a mere
50 years yet resulted in millions of paintings, including
some of the great, enduring masterpieces of Western art,
many of them calling Sydney home for the summer.
“From a practical point of view, bringing these paintings
to the other side of the world is quite a thing,” says
Roelofs. Each painting has its own custom-built, climate-
controlled crate; each is placed in a specific direction in
the cargo; and the collection travels in separate consignments.
“There’s always a risk, but there are risks everywhere. And there’s
always the tension [of loaning them]. But if you don’t show them, they
don’t exist. And the value is that you make people aware what it’s all
about. And this exhibition has the great Dutch masters of the 17th
century: Rembrandt and Vermeer and Hals and Steen and Ruisdael.
They’re all there, all telling the same story: the story of the richness and
quality and wealth of Dutch art.”
Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from the
Rijksmuseum is on at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until February 18.
Jane Albert travelled to Amsterdam as a guest of Singapore Airlines, the official
airline partner of the Sydney International Art Series exhibition.“THEY BEGAN
TO FOCUS ON
EVERYDAY LIFE
AND REALISM
WAS THE
MAIN GOAL”VOGUE CULTURE