Last weekend we strolled along the canals of Venice. This weekend, we’ll stroll along the canals of Amsterdam. We took advantage of another one of Dave’s business trips to Amsterdam by taking a BasiqAir flight from NCE to AMS on Saturday morning, giving us the weekend to play before he has to go to work on Monday. We started out by going to the highly-touted Rembrandt-Caravaggio exhibition, presented by both the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, to commemorate the 400th birthday of Rembrandt.
The exhibition is presented in the not-so-picturesque Van Gogh Museum, maybe because the beautiful Rijksmuseum is still only partially open while going through a major renovation.
In an artistic confrontation between the two Baroque artists from northern and southern Europe, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), face off on the walls of the Van Gogh Museum, from February 24th to June 18th. Rembrandt was born four years before Caravaggio’s death, and never viewed any of the works of the Italian genius. However, Rembrandt may have been indirectly influenced by the works of Caravaggio, through other artists that he admired and who were familiar with his work in Italy. They both used ordinary people as models for their paintings, and they both are described as masters of Chiaroscuro, which, according to dictionary.com, is described as the technique of using light and shade in pictorial representation. They differed, however, in their style. While Caravaggio’s style is distinguished with clean, clearly defined lines and precise areas of light and shadow, Rembrandt’s works have a distinct diffused lighting effect. We both found the exhibit, which consisted of around 30 paintings, to be outstanding.
Comments