Rembrandt

Cleveland Museum of Art

Friday was the best kind of Cleveland day there is: I had the day off, the weather was spectacular, with blue skies and a cool breeze, and there were fun things happening. I started the morning off by meeting up with my Aunt at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where she treated me to the Rembrandt exhibit, followed by a delicious lunch of tortellini, stromboli, and cannoli, Oh My!

 I don't know much about the Dutch masters, Rembrandt included. I'll come right out and admit that I paid very little attention in my art history classes and the details are fuzzy on the things I did bother to learn.Contemporary art is my thing, to be honest, and the older stuff doesn't usually capture my attention for very long. I can recognize the skill and talent that went into some of those paintings, but that's about it. I think sometimes older work is hard to appreciate because it was created in a time and place so different than the one we live in. It's a sort of cultural dissonance and it's hard to bridge that gap without delving into the history of that time itself, learning something of who the artist was and where they came from. Sometimes, though, the beauty of a piece can make it so that the context it was created in need not be understood to enjoy it, the piece stands alone. That's how the Rembrandt paintings were. And, as an added bonus, after seeing these master works, I'm interested in learning more about the artist.

 

 Admission to the Rembrandt exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art included a free audio tour along with it. They give you these little cell phone things that you punch numbers into to hear different facts about the paintings in the gallery.One of the most fascinating things I learned was that Rembrandt ran a studio where he taught many artists and some of the pieces these artists made were represented in this exhibit. Obviously, many of the paintings were done by Rembrandt himself but some of the paintings in the show were done in the style of Rembrandt by his students, and some are attributed to either Rembrandt or his students but it's still up for debate. It was pointed out that the value of having such an exhibition, is that seeing these paintings side-by-side may shed new light on the authenticity of some of them. Essentially, it allows them to be studied together. Certainly Rembrandt has a style. His portraits, while typically painted in muted tones, absolutely glow. They're seemingly lit from within. The paintings done by the artists studying under the master are missing that powerful quality that just make the Rembrandt images pop. It's a detail that might not be so obvious if the works were not viewed in person and at the same time.

Anyway, if you're in the Cleveland area and are looking for visual and artistic stimulation, I recommend checking out the Rembrandt exhibit. It includes both paintings and a collection of prints on loan from the Morgan Library and Museum. You won't be disappointed. But hurry, because it's only on display through May 28th.