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Showing posts from March, 2023

Men Behaving Badly; Women and Children Too

When we visit the Netherlands or come across the Dutch abroad, we always feel they know how to relax and enjoy life. Visit Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden and you'll see in their latest exhibition that this joie de vivre has a long tradition. The gallery is looking back 400 years to the birth in the city of Jan Steen, who frequently painted his countrymen having a good time. And yes, on occasion, perhaps just a little bit too much of a good time.  In this show,  At Home with Jan Steen -- 400 Years of Merrymaking , you will discover why the Dutch use the expression "a Jan Steen household" for a home where, well, things are maybe just a bit too free and easy. This is the painting that sums it up: What a jolly time everyone is having in The Merry Family . To the accompaniment of music, they are indeed making merry: singing, drinking and smoking. All are taking part; the old, the young, and even a baby wielding a spoon. The baby's not partaking of the alcohol or tobacco, adm...
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Opening and Closing in April

The Pre-Raphaelites -- their lives, their loves and their art -- have a lasting attraction, and The Rossettis at Tate Britain has got the blockbuster feel to it, with 150 paintings and drawings. It is, surprisingly, the first ever retrospective of poet and painter Dante Gabriel at the Tate, and the biggest show of his work in two decades. It's also the largest show in 30 years of art by his wife and model Lizzie Siddal and will in addition cover the life of Romantic poet Christina Rossetti and Dante's relationships with his muses Fanny Cornforth and Jane Morris. An immersive experience is promised, including spoken poetry. It's on from April 6 to September 24. There'll be some beautiful art to look at, even if we can't escape the feeling we've trodden similar ground a couple of times recently, here and there .  A very different experience will be on offer over at Tate Modern in the shape of Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life . The Swede af Klint...
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They Sold Him as Vermeer

Jacobus Vrel: the mystery man of Dutch Golden-Age painting. We don't know where he came from, where he lived and worked, or anything of note about him at all. His cryptic interiors and detailed street scenes were attributed by galleries, dealers and art historians, sometimes clearly fraudulently, to other artists -- Pieter de Hooch or the much more famous JV, Johannes Vermeer.  We've been fascinated by Vrel since first coming across his work a decade ago. So we've been looking forward for quite a while to the first ever exhibition devoted to him:  Vrel, Forerunner of Vermeer  at the Mauritshuis in The Hague.  This is the Vrel painting that first piqued our interest when we saw it in a show about women in Dutch interiors at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge back in 2012. Simply because it's such an unusual subject. To a certain extent, Dutch genre paintings repeat themes over and over again; messengers arrive with letters; swooning ladies are treated by doctors; mu...
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Vermeer's Remarkably Small World

Perhaps you've seen the superb Johannes Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum or, more likely, you've been frustrated by failing to get tickets. Whichever it is, you know the pictures, but how much do you know about the painter himself and the world he lived in? You'll learn so much more if you head to the Museum Prinsenhof in his home city for their show Vermeer's Delft . It was a remarkably small world; Delft in the middle of the 17th century was a little town by our standards, with just over 20,000 inhabitants. But despite that, Delft was a hub for art and science in the remarkably sophisticated society of the Dutch Golden Age. This exhibition throws light on the life of Vermeer the man, who spent all his 43 years living either on Delft's main square, or just off it, and demonstrates the influences on Vermeer the painter through the artworks and objects that surrounded him.    There are no Vermeer paintings in this show, but you'll see works by other artists...
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Vermeer -- Unmissable, If You Can Get a Ticket

Of course you'll want to see Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: It's absolutely stunning. But if you haven't been fortunate enough to secure a ticket yet, you may very well be disappointed. Even though it's on till early June and open late three evenings a week, it's absolutely sold out, though the museum is planning to make another announcement on Monday March 6 (set an alert on your phone) on how they'll make more tickets available.  This is truly an exceptional exhibition. Of the 37 paintings now attributed to Johannes Vermeer, the Rijksmuseum has assembled 28 (though there still seems to be an argument about whether a couple of them are truly by him). And although we've seen almost all of these pictures before, many of them on numerous occasions, it's a huge thrill to view them all together in one place. And we thought we'd done well to catch 23 Vermeers together at the Mauritshuis in The Hague in 1996.  So this truly is one of those bloc...
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