5 ms·
I worked at this museum a few decades ago on a contract job, it was cool to walk around among so much history. Though I never really could appreciate the "old m
by wkat4242 2y ago
I worked at this museum a few decades ago on a contract job, it was cool to walk around among so much history. Though I never really could appreciate the "old masters" from the Dutch Golden Age. Their work was part art and part record-keeping for which nowadays we have photography and video. The subject of many of these works are stuffy rich people posing for the "family album". Artfully done yes but boring subjects in my personal opinion.
I did like some of the landscape views though. But overall I'm more into modern art where the art and the message is the only goal.
One of the things special to me about the night watch is that it's huge in real life which I never really appreciated before I saw it. In contrast, the Mona Lisa at the Louvre was disappointingly tiny.
- scyzoryk_xyz 2y agoRecommend Peter Greenaway’s film „J’Accuse” about Rembrandt and that painting. It shares your criticism and argues that in it’s own time, that painting did as well.
- kwanbix 2y agoWhat is so incredible is the technique they used, the level of detail and how lifelike they are.
- magicalhippo 2y agoSomething which is very hard, if not impossible, to get unless you look at the real deal. I'm generally not into art but my mom took me to the Rijksmuseum, and I was blown away by the details in those paintings. I spent probably 15 minutes just studying the translucent ruff in one of the paintings in amazement. The paint is three dimensional, the light interacts in ways which just aren't captured in a photo. Viewing the paintings on my screen here now they all look flat and quite dull in comparison.
- gyomu 2y ago> One of the things special to me about the night watch is that it's huge in real life which I never really appreciated before I saw it. In contrast, the Mona Lisa at the Louvre was disappointingly tiny. I had the same experience seeing a print of Hokusai’s Great Wave. For whatever reason it was built up in my mind as a huge piece, but in reality it’s the size of a standard sheet of paper.
- meindnoch 2y agoUkiyo-e had standard sizes, but none was larger than an A/2 piece of paper.
- timwaagh 2y agoSounds like you have been to the Rijks and nowhere else. Lots of old paintings of all kinds of scenes hang in lots of museums all over this country. Not a huge museum goer but this lacks nuance.
- jimvdv 2y agoI agree with you on the subjects are boring rich people, if we judge it with today standards. For the time it was actually quite unique that (upper) middle class people could get their portrait done, and not just nobles. I like to think of it as part of a period of history where the merchants start to gain power from the aristocracy and that shows in what gets passed down to us.
- JJMcJ 2y ago> (upper) middle class people It reflects a great change in Western society, which really began to flourish first in the Netherlands, where the merchant and industrial classes began to be dominant, and were growing sick of pretending it wasn't true. Mostly in Britain these days, we see the final pretenses of the nobility on display.
- ghaff 2y agoHolland is really where the wealthy merchant class first became dominant in Europe--and was generally not subservient to the nobility as in other other countries.
- hnbukkake 2y ago[flagged]
- JJMcJ 2y agoRembrandt could put life into rich people's portraits in ways few were ever able to match. Besides the Night Watch, this one: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_-_De_Staalmeesters-_het_college_van_staalmeesters_(waardijns)_van_het_Amsterdamse_lakenbereidersgilde_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_-_De_Staal... known in English by various names, such as Syndics of the Drapers' Guild. These portrayals are anything but stuffy. One writer said, if you take Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, for music, Rembrandt was more than that for painting.
- wkat4242 2y agoYeah I just don't 'see that' in them. Like I said I'm far from an art connoisseur. So what I said is my opinion alone :)
- ErigmolCt 2y agoArt’s impact often depends on context
- cezart 2y agoI remember what I liked about Rijks upon visiting was that it was organized by decade, and had not only paintings, but various historical artifacts as well. Like state corporation sealed opium, which offered a context for the contemporary relaxed attitude of the Dutch towards drug consumption. And in general offered many windows into how the country grew up to be what it is. So yes, much history!
- ethbr1 2y ago> One of the things special to me about the night watch is that it's huge in real life which I never really appreciated before I saw it. Famous art that's stunningly bigger in person than I expected: - The Raft of the Medusa (Géricault) - Guernica (Picasso) - The Hallucinogenic Toreador (Dalí) Cannot recommend seeing art in person enough. Aside from the scale, it's also impossible to fully capture color or translucency in screen/page-presented imaging. And so much of the European painting mastery in the 1400s+ is the manipulation of non-opaque paint to create a desired effect.
- SamBam 2y agoAnd famous art that's much smaller in person than I expected: The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai. For such an epic image, it's only 25x37 cm / 10x14".
- hyperbovine 2y agoIt’s carved wood — hard to scale up!
- jfil 2y agoMaximilian I's 9ft x 11ft Triumphal Arch would like a word with you: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumphal_Arch_(woodcut) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumphal_Arch_(woodcut)
- MarceColl 2y agoJapanese woodblock prints were not considered art at the time, they were for the day to day. From advertisment to low cost decoration. Japanese Woodblock prints do not really have an original other than the woodblocks themselves (or the original painting the wood was carved from).
- MeteorMarc 2y agoAdd Birth of Venus (Botticelli)
- trox 2y ago
- devilbunny 2y agoIf you want a really interesting version of the work, go to the Royal Delft factory. They made a reproduction in their famous blue tile. It's about the same size as the original.
- dclowd9901 2y agoFor me, it took going to Van Gogh’s museum in Amsterdam to really get it. The way they contextualize and explain his work and the actual lighting of the museum is something to experience first hand.
- AlecSchueler 2y agoThere are several centuries between the Dutch Golden Age and Van Gogh.
- graftak 2y agoVan Gogh is modern art
- ghaff 2y agoYeah, it's not really fair to associate quality with size but... Thomas Cole's huge works. Most of Rembrandt's famous works are fairly large. Etc. I admit to not being an especial admirer of the Mona Lisa but certainly larger works grab our attention more.
- archagon 2y agoI was walking around the Rijksmuseum just yesterday and had the same thought. Except: Rembrandt’s paintings stood out to me among those of his peers. His subjects didn’t feel posed and his lighting and setpieces felt soft and naturalistic, not artificial. Each canvas gave the impression of an intimate peek into someone’s life. The style almost reminded me of late Romantic paintings (e.g. Peredvizhniki) that came 200 years later.
- didntcheck 2y agoWhen I visited I think I spent more time looking at the architecture of the building than the collections. It's very nice. Similar story with the Louvre I suppose - I never went in, but enjoyed walking past the pyramid exterior in the evening
- mmustapic 2y agoWhat I do like about those paintings is the techniques used: relief to give some parts more volume, simple strokes to portray glass or metal reflections, other kind of simple strokes for textiles. As you say, now we have photographs, but it amazes me how what they could do without that technology.
- sim7c00 2y agowell now most people look at pictures of stuff rich ppl on their phones all day. maybe they were ahead of their time :D. wish there were old masters who made pictures of cats. id visit that museum for sure.
- Ichthypresbyter 2y ago> Though I never really could appreciate the "old masters" from the Dutch Golden Age. Their work was part art and part record-keeping for which nowadays we have photography and video. The subject of many of these works are stuffy rich people posing for the "family album". Artfully done yes but boring subjects in my personal opinion. That's actully what I like about the Night Watch, and how it's displayed. It's in a room with other paintings from the same period in the same genre (group portraits of guilds or militia units), so you can see what Rembrandt's clients were expecting and how the Night Watch is different.