In the 17th century, art was big business in the Netherlands. According to Peter Raissis, curator of European prints, drawings and watercolours at the AGNSW, “no other country in the span of 100 years produced so many paintings of such high quality as the Netherlands between 1600 and 1700.” Most of them were sold to denizens of the burgeoning middle class who were keen to show off.
“They celebrated ostentation in the form of pronkstilleven, still lifes of lavish display.” Raissis cites as an example Pieter de Ring’s Still life with golden goblet, 1650–60. In this luscious composition the glistening fruits and seafood on display are so bountiful that they literally spill off the table.
The exhibition Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age includes many such paintings, images of conspicuous consumption. But as Raissis points out, there are plenty of more subtle and introspective works as well. Many of these are by Rembrandt. “His art embraces the magnitude of humanity in all its ugliness and imperfection,” says Raissis. “He understands pain and suffering and redemption. Look at the sympathy and insight with which he observed the life around him in all its wretchedness and then worked this into his most famous etching, The Hundred Guilder Print [Christ preaching, c1648]. Rembrandt is constantly reminding us of what it is to become or remain fully human.”
This etching is on show alongside works by Vermeer and numerous others. “Rembrandt and Vermeer are the artists everyone knows,” says Raissis. “But no doubt there’ll be lots of surprises, like the female painter Rachel Ruysch, whose floral still lifes are astonishing demonstrations of technical wizardry.” And, he explains, she was one of the most highly paid painters of the age.
Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum
Art Gallery of New South Wales
11 November – 18 February 2018.
65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art is an extraordinary account of the unique art of this continent, published alongside a landmark exhibition at the Potter Museum of Art. Necessary and urgent, it tells the story of Indigenous Australian art; a new art history unlike anything we’ve seen. For Jane O’Sullivan, it’s a remarkable and must-read book.
In a new series of illustrated postcards available as a free gift with purchase only at the Art Guide Bookstore, Oslo Davis takes on classic and contemporary art terms and genres and reimagines what they could be referring to.
With so much to choose from, we’ve rounded up the major summer exhibitions in each capital city, open all summer long. Spanning Yayoi Kusama, Magritte, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, and many more.
Julie Mehretu’s first solo exhibition in the southern hemisphere, now showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art, attempts to harness the urgency and energy of the Ethiopian-born New Yorker’s multilayered painting practice.
Whether beloved pets or superstitious omens, animals have always existed in art. The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia’s latest exhibition is paying tribute to two of the most beloved animal figures: cats and dogs.
bagan bariwariganyan: echoes of country, curated by Jonathan Jones and now showing at Bundanon, highlights a long history of Indigenous art on the New South Wales south coast, with works and installations from Jones, Aunty Julie Freeman, Aunty Cheryl Davison, and Mickey of Ulladulla.
