Late Rembrandt at the Rijksmuseum. Above all, that means lots of people. Long lines of admirers, who know they are (going to) see high level. Top level. And for that, everyone is willing to wait. The PR machine has done its job and now it's join the long queue and then shuffle past the many gazes, rakish lines and brushstrokes.
Rembrandt (1606-1669) captured unfathomable depths, in thoughts, eyes and gestures, in his countless etchings and canvases. There is much light, much dark, much suggestion. His powerful self-portraits set the tone. Rembrandt portrayed himself just as he painted others. He crept into their minds. He put a lot of suggestion in the now centuries-old paint, with which he was far ahead of his time. But above all, he could empathise deeply with those he portrayed. He brought congealed moments to life.
Like the story of Lucretia, raped by a king's son, who commits suicide. Her gaze is perhaps the most intense of the entire exhibition. Rembrandt understood her. And he painted many people, whose deepest souls he also got on canvas. You see them thinking, doubting, struggling.
You can see Bathsheba's dichotomy after she receives King David's letter (masterpiece from the Louvre). This makes for intensely intimate scenes.
More masterpieces hang, having come to Amsterdam from the US, Canada, Sweden, the UK, France, Germany and even Australia. All lost sons, back for a while. Pity, by the way, that 'The Return of the Prodigal Son' from the Hermitage in St Petersburg (also a late Rembrandt, after all) is not there. Another canvas full of soulful pain.
But you can't have everything, and in fact, these more than a hundred masterpieces are already more than a person can process in a few hours. All these impressions are simply too much, especially because of the countless etchings with their great detail. These demand attention and often distract from the immense canvases, which also demand so much empathy. And give. But what gives. They are finally home again. At a big, grand exhibition.
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