Art in Person

Image copyright, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The Jewish Bride is one of the most popular and mysterious Rembrandt paintings. We've all seen it, over and over, on the web, in our art history books, in our regular history books, and in prints on one's wall. I used to work at a library in an art museum. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what this painting was about.

I finally saw it in person while we were in Amsterdam, and nothing you can do will prepare you for the full impact of this image.

First - it's huge. Not as huge as, say, his famous Night Watch (which is truly huge), but the people are nearly life-sized.

Second, the color. In a flat image on a page or screen, the colors look rich and deep, but in person, they nearly vibrate in their intensity and depth. You can see how Rembrandt applied the paint so thickly in some places (the gentleman's sleeve, for example) that it literally swirls into peaks on the canvas. It is a truly three-dimensional painting.

Her jewelry looks so luscious and gleaming that you want to try it on.

I've often wondered about the man's hand on her breast. Sometimes it looked creepy and possessive, sometimes it looked greatly tender.

In person, I got a feeling of immense solace and comfort, instead. Rembrandt captured an important moment in their lives - something big had just happened to these people.

It made me think how you really can't have a full opinion on something until you've experienced it. You can have what Guy Baldwin, MS calls a 'provisional opinion', and it can even be a very well informed one. But to quote, "You can't decide how you really feel about Paris until you've been there."

I didn't how I felt about Rembrandt until I saw his work.

Travel picture of the day.

Amsterdam has some of the world's most intriguing architecture. Most of what we saw dated from the 17th Century, during the Netherland's time as the world's major trading power.  Designed to act as both homes and warehouses for goods, the narrow but tall buildings sport hoisting beams to pulley heavy bundles into the attics.  Then the merchants could bring their wares downstairs to show to purchasers.

To maximize space, they used a lot of spiraling staircases.

Very narrow, very steep spiral staircases.

For example, the staircase in the Hotel Brouwer, where The Charming Man and I stayed (by the way, this hotel was *lovely* and we highly recommend it).

I do believe these staircases are why the Dutch are such ridiculously good looking people.