Remastering:
People are flocking to a Rembrandt exhibition in Wellington even though the paintings are reproductions. But a Rembrandt expert says it’s actually better than the real thing, writes TOM CARDY.
Better than the real thing?
Erin Griffey, the foremost specialist in Australasia on Rembrandt, is the first to acknowledge it can take people some time to get their heads around the concept of Rembrandt Remastered.
The exhibition, which opened last Friday, has digital reproductions of 57 works by the 17th century Dutch master.
Based on photographs, each life-sized reproduction was printed in Wellington. But the most important difference is that each has been ‘‘remastered’’, as accurately as possible, to reflect what the painting looked like at the time it was completed in Rembrandt’s studio – not how the paintings, even those restored, look like today.
Griffey, head of art history at Auckland University and an international authority on 17th-century portraiture and patronage, says in many ways visitors to the exhibition will see much more than if they were viewing the real things. For one, they wouldn’t have access to all the paintings in galleries or museums, as some are from private collections. ‘‘Some are impossible to see by the lay person,’’ Griffey says, including Judas Repentant Returning the Pieces of Silver, which is part of a private collection in a remote part of northern England.
Others have been lost or stolen, which
includes The Storm on the Sea of Galilee – one of Griffey’s favourites. And unlike some Rembrandt’s on show overseas, all the reproductions in the exhibition have been hung at eye level.
‘‘You can really inspect every detail,’’ she says. ‘‘I’ve seen at least 75 per cent of these in real life and they have all been
hung in a very awkward manner. The
Prodigal Son in the Tavern is in Dresden and is [hung] so high you can’t make it out.
‘‘It doesn’t work. Other paintings are covered in very thick glass and they don’t work. [For] others the lighting is so awkward, there’s glare on the painting. So this is a really exciting opportunity to focus and get close.’’
Nor would you see the paintings together.
‘‘You would never get those paintings in the same room because they could never be loaned at the same time. The Rijksmuseum [in Amsterdam] where they have The Nightwatch – even that would never happen,’’ Griffey says.
A reproduction of the 4-metre-wide, 3m height The Nightwatch, a group portrait of an Amsterdam militia company, is also the work in its original size when painted by Rembrandt in 1642.
‘‘ The Nightwatch has [since] been cut down on all four sides. We see it as it was originally painted and that’s really exciting. We see how the original illusionism worked. It works much more effectively.’’
Another work, The Mill, has been digitally reconstructed to show a proportion of the left side of the painting which had been cut and tilted to the right so the landscape painting could fit a frame.
Griffey says that while people today are aghast that a Rembrandt would be cut or modified in some way, it has to be put in the context of the time when Rembrandt’s works weren’t viewed as sacred objects.
Other works include those that had been damaged, such as Danae, painted in 1636. The painting, which hangs in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, was restored after a museum visitor threw sulphuric acid over it and slashed it with a knife in 1985.
There’s two works of a husband and wife that are now in different art collections. In this exhibition they can be seen together as intended. ‘‘They are meant really to be seen as one art work. They talk to each other.’’
Griffey says it’s also important for the public to know that art historians often rely on viewing reproductions of works, mostly photographs in books, when studying artists. ‘‘Any art historian who claims that they’re sitting in front of the original while they write out exactly what they think about the thing is lying.’’
The pictures in Rembrandt Remastered are of a higher quality than most reproductions.
Griffey is the exhibition’s New Zealand curator, but says she is more the New Zealand ‘‘interpreter’’. This is because the exhibition has been distilled from a larger exhibition of 330 reproductions on show in Amsterdam by he Rembrandt Research Project. The project is headed by Professor Ernst van de Wetering, considered the world’s leading Rembrandt expert.
Boyd Klap, president of the New Zealand Netherlands Foundation, visited the Amsterdam exhibition and asked if there were plans to tour it overseas. Later Van de Wetering chose the 57 paintings for the New Zealand tour, with Klap working with Griffey and Wellington-based director John Dow.
Griffey has never met van de Wetering, whom she describes as ‘‘the patriarch of Rembrandt studies’’ but knows he is helpful to those who want to learn more about the artist. Several of her students are studying Rembrandt, including some for masters degrees and she suggested to one who was analysing colour in Rembrandt’s works that she contact van de Wetering.
‘‘She went to Amsterdam to do research and he met with her and was so lovely to her.’’
The fact people are still passionate enough to study Rembrandt also shows that the painter remains relevant to people, she says.
‘‘I marvel at it. It’s a testimony to Rembrandt’s continued currency. He continues to excite people, partly because his works in so many ways are so modern in their expressiveness and the way they challenge convention. ‘‘He was the ultimate Bohemian artist. ‘‘Today there’s the myth of the romantic outsider artist. Rembrandt founded the myth. He was the one that did that.’’