[Clayart] museum shops

[Girrell, Bruce]

Mel wrote:
our old paintings are on tv. just look them up....`god almighty i don't look at my friends on tv...in the flesh.  the permanent collection is not shown any longer.

I have seen many photos of paintings by Rembrandt and his peers online and in books. OK. But I never really understood why terms like "grand master" are applied to his work until I physically stood in front of some of his paintings in the Rijksmuseum. Despite being heavily layered with blacks and browns, the paintings seemed to glow with light. It was like there was more light coming from the canvas than was being applied by the museum lighting. The detail present in the paintings is phenomenal and is difficult to appreciate until you see it for yourself. Individual hairs on people, threads of clothing, details of belt buckles and decorations on possessions of the people in the painting. There is a sense of presence, as though you're not looking at a painting but a real scene. And at the size of something like Nightwatch, the feeling is even stronger.

I had none of these feelings when seeing the paintings in what I am sure are fine photographic replicas. They really didn't have much meaning to me until I was six feet in front of them. But standing there, I got it. Viscerally, I got it. I understood why this painter and others like him are so venerated. 

I don't see any way in which a TV screen, an HD computer monitor or even a high quality print can do justice to the original work. It just won't work until you can feel the size of the work and at the same time you can examine the tiniest of brush strokes, the mixing of colors, and all the parts that make up the whole of the painting. I don't see how such an experience can be conveyed by a simple copy.

Bruce Girrell