Rembrant's 400th Birthday
Celebrating Rembrandt
Deanna MacDonald
Montreal Gazette, June, 2006
It is almost impossible to turn a corner in Amsterdam these days without running into Rembrandt; his face or name seem to adorn every banner, tram car or canal boat. Though the epitome of modern urban cool, Amsterdam is sparing no effort to celebrate the 400th birthday of an old fashioned genius. Yet this makes sense, as Rembrandt is as synonymous with Holland as tulips and bicycles. The gentle humanism of his portraits, which embrace the subject’s strengths and foibles reflects the tolerant open culture of Holland itself.
In honour of his birthday (on July 15), more than 20 major events are planned all year long. There will be important exhibitions at the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, Rembrandt House and many others museums, which will bring together Rembrandt’s works from around the world. Even the airport is getting into the spirit: the Rijksmuseum Schiphol will present shows on Rembrandt’s pupils and imitators. Peter Greenaway’s latest film, “Nightwatching,” a biopic about Rembrandt focusing on the creation of “The Nightwatch,” will be released this year and the Rijksmuseum plans to hold an exhibition on the film next to the painting (2 June - 6 August 2006). If that wasn’t enough, Rembrandt will sing: Amsterdam’s Royal Carré Theatre will present, “Rembrandt, the Musical.”
The greatest pleasure of course will be to see Rembrandt’s greatest works in the cities where they were painted. Just outside the doors of Holland’s superlative museums are the streets and cityscapes that Rembrandt knew, still basked in the northern light and atmosphere that inspired him. Special guided Rembrandt walking tours will be offered during 2006 in Leiden, where Rembrandt was born, and in Amsterdam, where he created his masterpieces. On a recent visit, I walked these routes and discovered that even before his birthday celebrations began that modern Holland is full of glimpses of Rembrandt’s everyday and artistic world.
Rembrandt was born in 1606 to a family of millers in Leiden, today a pretty university town 20-minute from Amsterdam by train. To say that all of Holland looks like a 17th-century painting is perhaps an exaggeration but as I walked by Leiden’s rows of neat, gabled, canal houses and picturesque windmills framed against a wind whipped blue sky, I could still clearly see the region’s artistic inspiration for the artist. From Leiden’s excellent Museum de Lakenhal (which is also presenting successive exhibits on Rembrandt through 2006), I followed a marked walking route to the places associated with Rembrandt. He was born at Weddesteeg no. 3, now no more that a plaque on a modern building, but nearby is a picturesque canal bridge and windmill familiar from Rembrandt’s art. The red brick schoolhouse he attended stands near the medieval Pieterskerk, where many members of the van Rijn family were buried.
At 18, Rembrandt left Leiden to study painting in Amsterdam and it was there that Rembrandt became Rembrandt. Thanks to Amsterdam’s unique, canal-laced geography and a bit of historical luck, despite its modern veneer, central Amsterdam is still essentially the city Rembrandt knew. The 17th-century was Holland’s Golden Age when its medieval core expanded with canals lined with Baroque buildings, one of which Rembrandt, at the height of his success, purchased on Jodenbreestraat in 1639. I spent an entire morning in this same house, which is today the Rembrandt House Museum.
“The house was completely reconstructed in 1998 to recreate how it was when Rembrandt lived here [from 1639-1660] …including his studio, shop and living quarters,” said Femke Haytema of the Rembrandt House Museum. The museum holds everything from his bedroom to his extensive collection of curios (from Greek statues to Asian porcelain which sometimes pop up in his paintings) to the clay pots in which he mixed his paints, as well as a superlative collection of Rembrandt prints. Touring the house feels like a peek in to Rembrandt’s life in 17th-century Amsterdam.
But although the Rembrandt House displays the plush, comfortable house of a successful artist, the only reason its original contents are know is because Rembrandt declared bankruptcy in 1556. The inventories used to recreate his residence were the same used to liquidate his assets. For all his fame, his life was tinged with tragedy, which perhaps adds to his universal appeal. His much-loved wife and the model for many of his pictures, Saskia, died before she was thirty - her grave lies in the Oude Kerke (Old Church), today used as an art gallery in the heart of the Red Light District - his children died young and Rembrandt himself was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave in the beautiful early 17th-century Westerkerk, not far from his last humble address in the working class Jordaan area where he spent his final years. Today however, Jordaan is a trendy and expensive residential neighbourhood and a plaque on an Asian furniture shop at Rosengrachtstraat 184 marks where Rembrandt’s house once stood.
You can wander almost anywhere in Amsterdam and find a Rembrandt link. On busy Nieuwmarkt square at the edge of the Red Light District, is the turreted De Waag. Built as a medieval city gate, by Rembrandt’s day this building was part of the medical school where students attended dissections, which Rembrandt captured in the somewhat gruesome 1632 “Anatomy Lesson of Prof. Tulp” that now hangs in the Mauritshuis, in Den Hague. Today De Waag is, unexpectedly, a popular restaurant (see below) but an engraved sign for the “Theatrum Anatomicum” still marks the entrance Rembrandt and the medical students would have used.
Nearby, the uber-cool, contemporary design studio, Droog (www.droogdesign.nl, Staalstraat 7b) is found in what was once the headquarters of the clothmaker’s guild. Rembrandt’s famed portrait of the guild’s leaders, “De Staalmeesters” (1662, now in the Rijksmuseum), hung here for more than 100 years. A few streets away, I asked the receptionist at the Doelen Hotel (Nieuwe Doelenstraat 24) for permission to climb to the first floor, where between hotel rooms, a reproduction of Rembrandt’s famous “Nightwatch” marks the spot where it originally hung when the building was the Rifleman’s Guild, whose members are pictured in the painting.
Afterwards I visited the Rijksmuseum to see the originals. In this age of mechanical reproduction, we often become blasé about famous masterpieces that we have seen on everything from school textbooks to cookie tins. Nevertheless I often find myself startled when I am standing in front of the real thing, and the “Nightwatch” was no exception. Packed with portraits of the rifleman in action, it also includes a portrait of Saskia (as the child mascot of the group) and Rembrandt himself, or at least his right eye, which peeks out from behind the crowd.
But you don’t even have to go to a museum to see a Rembrandt in Amsterdam. I ate an atmospheric dinner sitting under original Rembrandt prints at the popular Restaurant D’Vijff Vlieghen (the Five Flies), whose cosy, wood-panelled interior dates from Rembrandt’s time. And Amsterdam remains the kind of city that nurtures young artists. “If Rembrandt were to live in Amsterdam today,” said art historian and Amsterdam guide, Dr. Bregtje Viergever-Michels, “I think he would probably live in de Pijp,” This neighbourhood close to the Rijksmusuem is populated with artists and designers and is dotted with interesting galleries, clubs and restaurants.
For anyone who has ever been captured by the intimate gazes of Rembrandt’s portraits, or dazzled by the detail of his etchings, this is the year to visit the Netherlands to experience the Holland he knew and to partake in Holland’s yearlong party for its famed native son.
IF YOU GO:
For more information on Rembrandt’s year long birthday celebrations see: www.rembrandt400.com.
For information on visiting the Netherlands see the website of Holland Tourism - www.holland.com or Amsterdam Tourism: www.Amsterdamtourist.nl.
KLM flies to Amsterdam direct from Montreal. See www.klm.com.
Where to stay:
Sofitel Demeure Grand: Oudezijds Voorburgwal 197, Amsterdam; (+31 20) 555 3 111; www.thegrand.nl. This luxury hotel in the heart of Old Amsterdam was the Dutch Admiralty in Rembrandt’s time. Doubles start at $580 (€420).
NH Doelen Hotel: Nieuwe Doelenstraat 24, Amsterdam, (+31 20) 554 06 00, www.nh-hotels.com. Doubles from $150 (€109). “The Nightwatch” originally hung here.
Where to eat:
D’Vijff Vlieghen (the Five Flies): Spuistraat 294-302, (+31 20) 530 40 60, www.thefiveflies.com.
Café in de Waag, Nieuwmarkt 4, (+31 20) 422 77 72, www.indewaag.nl.
Deanna MacDonald
Montreal Gazette, June, 2006
It is almost impossible to turn a corner in Amsterdam these days without running into Rembrandt; his face or name seem to adorn every banner, tram car or canal boat. Though the epitome of modern urban cool, Amsterdam is sparing no effort to celebrate the 400th birthday of an old fashioned genius. Yet this makes sense, as Rembrandt is as synonymous with Holland as tulips and bicycles. The gentle humanism of his portraits, which embrace the subject’s strengths and foibles reflects the tolerant open culture of Holland itself.
In honour of his birthday (on July 15), more than 20 major events are planned all year long. There will be important exhibitions at the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, Rembrandt House and many others museums, which will bring together Rembrandt’s works from around the world. Even the airport is getting into the spirit: the Rijksmuseum Schiphol will present shows on Rembrandt’s pupils and imitators. Peter Greenaway’s latest film, “Nightwatching,” a biopic about Rembrandt focusing on the creation of “The Nightwatch,” will be released this year and the Rijksmuseum plans to hold an exhibition on the film next to the painting (2 June - 6 August 2006). If that wasn’t enough, Rembrandt will sing: Amsterdam’s Royal Carré Theatre will present, “Rembrandt, the Musical.”
The greatest pleasure of course will be to see Rembrandt’s greatest works in the cities where they were painted. Just outside the doors of Holland’s superlative museums are the streets and cityscapes that Rembrandt knew, still basked in the northern light and atmosphere that inspired him. Special guided Rembrandt walking tours will be offered during 2006 in Leiden, where Rembrandt was born, and in Amsterdam, where he created his masterpieces. On a recent visit, I walked these routes and discovered that even before his birthday celebrations began that modern Holland is full of glimpses of Rembrandt’s everyday and artistic world.
Rembrandt was born in 1606 to a family of millers in Leiden, today a pretty university town 20-minute from Amsterdam by train. To say that all of Holland looks like a 17th-century painting is perhaps an exaggeration but as I walked by Leiden’s rows of neat, gabled, canal houses and picturesque windmills framed against a wind whipped blue sky, I could still clearly see the region’s artistic inspiration for the artist. From Leiden’s excellent Museum de Lakenhal (which is also presenting successive exhibits on Rembrandt through 2006), I followed a marked walking route to the places associated with Rembrandt. He was born at Weddesteeg no. 3, now no more that a plaque on a modern building, but nearby is a picturesque canal bridge and windmill familiar from Rembrandt’s art. The red brick schoolhouse he attended stands near the medieval Pieterskerk, where many members of the van Rijn family were buried.
At 18, Rembrandt left Leiden to study painting in Amsterdam and it was there that Rembrandt became Rembrandt. Thanks to Amsterdam’s unique, canal-laced geography and a bit of historical luck, despite its modern veneer, central Amsterdam is still essentially the city Rembrandt knew. The 17th-century was Holland’s Golden Age when its medieval core expanded with canals lined with Baroque buildings, one of which Rembrandt, at the height of his success, purchased on Jodenbreestraat in 1639. I spent an entire morning in this same house, which is today the Rembrandt House Museum.
“The house was completely reconstructed in 1998 to recreate how it was when Rembrandt lived here [from 1639-1660] …including his studio, shop and living quarters,” said Femke Haytema of the Rembrandt House Museum. The museum holds everything from his bedroom to his extensive collection of curios (from Greek statues to Asian porcelain which sometimes pop up in his paintings) to the clay pots in which he mixed his paints, as well as a superlative collection of Rembrandt prints. Touring the house feels like a peek in to Rembrandt’s life in 17th-century Amsterdam.
But although the Rembrandt House displays the plush, comfortable house of a successful artist, the only reason its original contents are know is because Rembrandt declared bankruptcy in 1556. The inventories used to recreate his residence were the same used to liquidate his assets. For all his fame, his life was tinged with tragedy, which perhaps adds to his universal appeal. His much-loved wife and the model for many of his pictures, Saskia, died before she was thirty - her grave lies in the Oude Kerke (Old Church), today used as an art gallery in the heart of the Red Light District - his children died young and Rembrandt himself was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave in the beautiful early 17th-century Westerkerk, not far from his last humble address in the working class Jordaan area where he spent his final years. Today however, Jordaan is a trendy and expensive residential neighbourhood and a plaque on an Asian furniture shop at Rosengrachtstraat 184 marks where Rembrandt’s house once stood.
You can wander almost anywhere in Amsterdam and find a Rembrandt link. On busy Nieuwmarkt square at the edge of the Red Light District, is the turreted De Waag. Built as a medieval city gate, by Rembrandt’s day this building was part of the medical school where students attended dissections, which Rembrandt captured in the somewhat gruesome 1632 “Anatomy Lesson of Prof. Tulp” that now hangs in the Mauritshuis, in Den Hague. Today De Waag is, unexpectedly, a popular restaurant (see below) but an engraved sign for the “Theatrum Anatomicum” still marks the entrance Rembrandt and the medical students would have used.
Nearby, the uber-cool, contemporary design studio, Droog (www.droogdesign.nl, Staalstraat 7b) is found in what was once the headquarters of the clothmaker’s guild. Rembrandt’s famed portrait of the guild’s leaders, “De Staalmeesters” (1662, now in the Rijksmuseum), hung here for more than 100 years. A few streets away, I asked the receptionist at the Doelen Hotel (Nieuwe Doelenstraat 24) for permission to climb to the first floor, where between hotel rooms, a reproduction of Rembrandt’s famous “Nightwatch” marks the spot where it originally hung when the building was the Rifleman’s Guild, whose members are pictured in the painting.
Afterwards I visited the Rijksmuseum to see the originals. In this age of mechanical reproduction, we often become blasé about famous masterpieces that we have seen on everything from school textbooks to cookie tins. Nevertheless I often find myself startled when I am standing in front of the real thing, and the “Nightwatch” was no exception. Packed with portraits of the rifleman in action, it also includes a portrait of Saskia (as the child mascot of the group) and Rembrandt himself, or at least his right eye, which peeks out from behind the crowd.
But you don’t even have to go to a museum to see a Rembrandt in Amsterdam. I ate an atmospheric dinner sitting under original Rembrandt prints at the popular Restaurant D’Vijff Vlieghen (the Five Flies), whose cosy, wood-panelled interior dates from Rembrandt’s time. And Amsterdam remains the kind of city that nurtures young artists. “If Rembrandt were to live in Amsterdam today,” said art historian and Amsterdam guide, Dr. Bregtje Viergever-Michels, “I think he would probably live in de Pijp,” This neighbourhood close to the Rijksmusuem is populated with artists and designers and is dotted with interesting galleries, clubs and restaurants.
For anyone who has ever been captured by the intimate gazes of Rembrandt’s portraits, or dazzled by the detail of his etchings, this is the year to visit the Netherlands to experience the Holland he knew and to partake in Holland’s yearlong party for its famed native son.
IF YOU GO:
For more information on Rembrandt’s year long birthday celebrations see: www.rembrandt400.com.
For information on visiting the Netherlands see the website of Holland Tourism - www.holland.com or Amsterdam Tourism: www.Amsterdamtourist.nl.
KLM flies to Amsterdam direct from Montreal. See www.klm.com.
Where to stay:
Sofitel Demeure Grand: Oudezijds Voorburgwal 197, Amsterdam; (+31 20) 555 3 111; www.thegrand.nl. This luxury hotel in the heart of Old Amsterdam was the Dutch Admiralty in Rembrandt’s time. Doubles start at $580 (€420).
NH Doelen Hotel: Nieuwe Doelenstraat 24, Amsterdam, (+31 20) 554 06 00, www.nh-hotels.com. Doubles from $150 (€109). “The Nightwatch” originally hung here.
Where to eat:
D’Vijff Vlieghen (the Five Flies): Spuistraat 294-302, (+31 20) 530 40 60, www.thefiveflies.com.
Café in de Waag, Nieuwmarkt 4, (+31 20) 422 77 72, www.indewaag.nl.
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