| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
March Issue 2006
NC Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC, Celebrates Rembrandt's 400th Birthday with Special Exhibition of Etchings
To celebrate the 400th birthday of famed artist Rembrandt van Rijn, the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC, presents a group of 35 etchings by the Dutch master. The exhibition entitled Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt's Etchings, Selections from the John Villarino Collection, opens Mar. 5 and closes Apr. 30, 2006.
The exhibition includes prints made from copper plate etchings, which date between 1629 and 1654, and thus correspond with the years when Rembrandt was most actively involved with the medium. With 35 works on display, viewers will have the opportunity to see how Rembrandt experimented with inks, paper, and the reworking of the copper plates to enhance the visual impact of the imagery.
As the exhibition title suggests, Sordid and Sacred is dedicated to images of beggars, subjects Rembrandt portrays sympathetically.
"Rembrandt renders his beggars with the same feeling for humanity that he brought to his portraits and narrative subjects," said Dennis P. Weller, PhD, chief curator and curator of northern European art. "In his hands, beggars are not contemptible or loathsome creatures, but rather individuals who demand a certain degree of respect. These etchings are significant and really beautiful, and the exhibition is a fitting commemoration of Rembrandt's birthday."
As one of the towering figures in the history of art, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), a miller's son from the university town of Leiden, was an artist of unmatched genius. Equally gifted as a painter, printmaker, and draftsman, Rembrandt proved himself to be as skillful at making portraits as he was at creating religious and mythological narratives. His landscapes are just as remarkable as his rare still lifes and subjects detailing everyday life.
Much of Rembrandt's work displays a crossover between various genres, and his etchings of beggars are no exception. In one of the works he inserts a self-portrait alongside a beggar couple. In another, The Flight into Egypt: Crossing a Brook, Rembrandt rendered the holy family with the same earthiness and sympathy found in many of his beggars.
Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt's Etchings is drawn from the John Villarino Collection, Los Angeles, CA, and organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA.
Weller will introduce the exhibition and discuss Rembrandt's etchings within the context of the artist's career in a public lecture on Mar. 19, 2006, at 2pm in the Museum Auditorium.
A pamphlet with a short essay by Rembrandt scholar Gary Schwartz is available for $1.
The North Carolina Museum of Art's permanent collection spans more than 5,000 years, from ancient Egypt to the present, making it one of the premier visual arts museums in the Southeast. The Museum uses its collection to provide educational, aesthetic, intellectual and cultural experiences for the citizens of North Carolina and beyond. The Museum offers a series of changing national touring exhibitions, classes, lectures, family activities, films and concerts.
For more information
check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Museum at
919/839-6262 or at (www.ncartmuseum.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing
Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2006 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
Online, Copyright© 2006 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved
by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use
without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina
Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.