A Quick Inaccurate Guide to the Golden Age of Dutch Art
In the center of Amsterdam is an imposing building, the Rijksmuseum. The word is Dutch for “building filled with art done by people so talented you can only wonder what have you accomplished in your life.”
The museum was started in The Hague in the late 18th Century. It moved 10 years later when city leaders, foreseeing that the International Court of Justice would eventually be there, concluded beauty and justice have no business being together.
While the Rijksmuseum is consider the national museum of The Netherlands and has art created over the centuries, for millions of tourists the only thing they are concerned with is the art of what’s considered “the Golden Age of Dutch Painting.”
It is called that because the artists placed their paintings in frames that had been painted gold.
You can see that above in the picture, a self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh, perhaps the best known of the Dutch Golden Age painters. His fame comes partially from the fact he cut off one of his ears.
While it’s not known for certain why he did this, the generally accepted thought is he’d grown tired of people asking, “So, Vinny. When you going to sell something?”
FUN FACT: Not only do Van Gogh’s eyes seem to follow you no matter where you stand, if you spend too much time looking at the work of another artist, Van Gogh appears to be sticking his tongue out at you.
Given the lack of cameras in the 17th Century, Dutch artists were often called upon to paint the early equivalent of crime scene photos. Hendrik Goltzius, a printmaker and painter in the city of Haarlem – it was common practice among the Dutch to take the names of areas in the as yet unsettled New York City and add an extra vowel – was one of those artists.
While he was a successful painter and engraver, he always seemed to need the extra money, He had the uncanny ability to show up at crime scenes quickly, sometimes even before the cops showed up.
In this picture, Goltzius captures the dying moments of Adonis a.k. Donny Perfect. While police were certain he was killed by a boar, they believe that Donny’s death was actually a hit ordered by Ares “Make War Not Love” Van Killinstuff, Artemis Neuwenhousdis, or Apollo de Jongboer.
FUN FACT: While the police developed evidence showing all three had motive, prosecutor Jacksen McCoyenburen thought there were too many holes and never brought a case. The death of Adonis remains unsolved.
Johannes Vermeer is probably the second-most well known of Dutch painters, a fact that while he never knew it, always bothered him. Most people today know of Vermeer because of his portrait of Scarlett Johansson wearing a pearl earring. However, to art historians the greatness of Vermeer (Dutch for “John Updike”) lies in his ultra-realistic depictions of middle class life such as this woman adding milk to a 12-shot latte.
The most famous of all Dutch artists is Rembrandt van Rijn, better known as Rembrandt van Rijn. He was also known as “Remy” and was the inspiration for the character of Remy in the Pixar movie “Ratatouille.”
Shown above is one of Rembrandt’s most famous pictures, “Operation Night Watch.” What few know is that it was actually done as a promotional poster for a television pilot about a police precinct, Breukelen 99, that never got made.
FUN FACT: As famous as he was, Rembrandt was forced to take the occasional job just for the money. Above is shown a page from a Human Resources guide on sexual harassment. The difference is that in 17th Century Amsterdam, it was considered a how-to manual.
That’s what I learned listening to the audio tour at the Rijksmuseum though my headphones left cutting in and out so I may have misheard some things.