Episode 08 Rembrandt, Vermeer And The Rijksmuseum

Rembrandt and Vermeer are the artists whom travellers first name when thinking of Amsterdam and the Rijksmuseum, the world-class gallery where some of their work hangs, is the most-visited site in the city. This episode begins with a little history, explaining how art came to be of such importance in Amsterdam, then focuses on the main things to see in the Rijksmuseum, along with some biographical details on the two best-known artists from Amsterdam’s Golden Age. As ever, there is much more detail on the podcast.

a little history

Amsterdam cover Lives of Rembrandt by Sandrart, et al

Amsterdam cover Vermeer by Christopher Walsh

In the 17th century, Amsterdam was booming thanks to its trading successes and rich merchants used some of their wealth to commission works of art – biblical scenes, Dutch landscapes, pictures of Amsterdam itself and – most popular of all – portraits. Of course this encouraged artists to flock to the city, eager for work and for the large fees they could earn. In Deborah Moggach’s Tulip Fever, the author describes a scene in which a rich merchant and his wife are having their portrait painted by an artist invited into their home. The husband is ‘proud to display his wealth’, gained by importing grain from the Baltic and rare spices from the Orient and by exporting ‘shiploads of textiles.’

The rijksMuseum

In 1795, when the Dutch king William V fled to London, he took 200 of his favourite paintings with him, but they were confiscated by the Dutch government and returned to Amsterdam. When Louis Napoleon was crowned King of the Netherlands in 1807, perhaps aware of the huge art collection amassed by his brother the Emperor, he started to plan the building of an impressive new art gallery for Amsterdam. In fact, it didn’t open until 1885, but the Rijksmuseum, designed by Pierre Cuypers who also did the Centraal Station, was worth the wait. Its huge size makes an impact, its redbrick design with slate-roofed turrets and beautiful carved stone decorations is stunning, both inside and out.

Here you’ll find galleries for medieval art and later centuries, plus a superb Asian collection, but most visitors have come to see the ‘Gallery of Honour’ and its extensive collection of works from the Dutch Golden Age. As the guidebook puts it: ‘The 17th century …. was a climate of unbridled cultural and artistic growth, particularly in painting. To this day, our image of the 17th century is largely defined by such great masters as Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Frans Hals and Jan Steen.’ Do pause in the impressive entrance hall to admire the stained-glass windows featuring Dutch cultural icons including Rembrandt and the 17th century author Joost van den Vondel.

rembrandt

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-69) was certainly the most famous painter of his day, so successful in selling his work and also as an art dealer and teacher that he was able to buy an impressive property in Jodenbreestraat and lead an extravagant lifestyle. But after the death of his wife Saskia, the scandals of his later years – there’s much more detail on the podcast! – left him shunned by the strict Calvinist society of Amsterdam and struggling to find commissions. Even after selling off many paintings and other possessions, his debts led to insolvency and when he died in 1669, he was buried in an unmarked grave in the Westerkerk.

Rembrandt was a master portrait painter and in fact about 10% of his work was self- portraits, several of which are on display at the Rijksmuseum. His best-known work, The Night Watch is here too, a colossal piece painted in 1642 at the height of his career. It depicts the group charged with keeping watch over Amsterdam at night, but unlike other group portraits from this era, it is not a staid rendering of serious people, but shows the characters as individuals through their gestures and glances, dramatically set in a mix of light and shade. It has had pride of place here since the museum opened in 1885 and is still the star attraction.

vermeer

Only about 35 of Vermeer’s paintings survive, but as the Encyclopaedia Britannica says, ‘they are among the most beloved and revered images in the history of art.’ Very little is known about Vermeer’s early life, except that he was born in Delft, came to Amsterdam as an apprentice in his early 20s and was the father of 11 children. He must have been a respected artist because he was twice chosen by his peers as Head of the Artists’ Guild, but he died poor when only in his forties, having struggled to sell his work when the art market collapsed during the Franco-Dutch War of the 1670s.

The author Christopher Wright writes of the ‘peaceful stillness’ of Vermeer’s paintings and sums up his appeal thus: ‘He created a series of pictures which seem to reflect an authentic 17th century Dutch reality. The music lessons, the letter readers or writers, young men in their studies, all are convincing because of the probity of his observation.’ The Rijkmuseum’s own guidebook refers to the ‘extraordinary tranquillity’ of the scenes painted by Vermeer and surmises that his popularity is due to ‘his ability to fabricate an entire universe from seemingly ordinary situations and to express sentiments that transcend the particulars of the scene.’

Amsterdam Golden Age Vermeer the Milkmaid

Perhaps the most popular of all Vermeer’s paintings in the Rijksmuseum is the Milkmaid, showing a simply dressed maidservant pouring milk, fully concentrating on her task. There’s an element of intrigue in other works such as The Love Letter, where the lady receiving the letter is almost two thirds in shadow, her expression open to question. The author Paul Auster captures the pull of the painting Woman in Blue Reading a Letter in his work The Invention of Solitude, describing how a viewer, his character A, is drawn in to the scene:

‘A stares hard at the woman’s face, and as time passes he almost begins to hear the voice inside the woman’s head as she reads the letter in her hands. She’s so very pregnant, so tranquil in the immanence of her motherhood, with the letter taken out of the box, no doubt being read for the hundredth time …..the light pouring gently over her face and shining on her blue smock, the belly bulging with life, and its blueness bathed in luminosity, a light so pale it verges on whiteness.’

The author of the Old World Voyages blog sums up the appeal of Vermeer very succinctly in her review of a Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum: ‘As a history lover, I have a fondness for genre paintings that depict daily life. I feel as though they act as something of a window into the past. Vermeer’s paintings in particular have a way of drawing the viewer in so completely that it feels as though you’re standing right there in the room observing the quiet drama unfolding. They’re like historical snapshots, small moments perfectly captured and frozen in time.’

MORE PAINTINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR

Amsterdam RijksmuseumPeace of Munster (detail) by Gerard ter Borch

Amsterdam Rijksmuseum Still Life with Cheese

Still Life with Cheese by Floris Claes van Dijk is an example of the still lifes painted by many Dutch artists and summed up in the museum’s guidebook as ‘vases brimming with colourful flowers, kitchens piled with meat, fowl, fruit and vegetables, tables laid for a meal’. Pieter de Hooch’s quiet scenes such as Interior with Women beside the Linen Cupboard and A Maid with a Child in a Pantry are cool, calm domestic paintings which contrast with Jan Steen’s The Merry Family, portraying a boisterous family mealtime. The Peace of Munster is another of the museum’s large works, showing a large gathering of the Dutch men who signed the treaty which ended the war between Spain and the Dutch Republic in 1648.

In Tulip Fever, Deborah Moggach sums up the appeal of the Dutch Golden Age paintings in these lines: ‘And hanging in a thousand homes, paintings mirror back the lives that are lived here. A woman plays the virginal; she catches the eye of a man beside her. A handsome young soldier lifts a glass to his lips; his reflection shines in the silver-topped decanter. A maid gives her mistress a letter. The mirrored moments are stilled, suspended in aspic. For centuries to come people will gaze at these paintings and wonder what is about to happen.’