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| THE
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM 2006: Trip
Report |
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| The next day was culture day. We started
with the Rijks Museum, about a kilometer
stroll from our apartment. We were aware of the major
artists, Rembrandt, Vermeer and so on, and the prices
such works fetch at auction, but had never really understood
why. We wanted to see the originals and find out what
made them special. |
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The originals are
stunning. The metal shines like real polished metal
with all its reflections. The
tablecloth with the folds has the texture of a real
cloth. The crumbs in
the cake and bread are perfect. The mind boggles at
the technical skill
needed to achieve that with a paint brush.
The picture is totally realistic, but at the same
time idealized. The
effect could not be captured with a photograph because
the composition
is too perfect to have existed, except in the mind
of the artist.
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| The gallery
was quiet, and the security unobtrusive so we could get
as close to the pictures as we wanted. |
| The Van Gogh
museum is only a couple of hundred yards away. He wasn't
recognized in his lifetime but his brother and sister
in law realized his genius and kept a collection
of over 300 paintings intact until it was taken over
by the state. His style changed and improved markedly
in
the last couple of years of his life when his mental
illness was developing and until his eventual suicide. |
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