The National Gallery: London

For decades the most continually provocative of British artists, Richard Hamilton (1922–2011, right) was long concerned with the great themes of Western painting. At the time of his death, he was completing plans for an exhibition at the National Gallery, London, to include the first public showing of what turned out to be his final work. Based on Balzac's short story, The Unknown Masterpiece, it depicts three masters of painting—Poussin, Courbet, and Titian—contemplating a reclining female nude and reflecting on the meaning of art. As with much of Hamilton's late work, the image was generated by computer but over-painted by hand. Knowing he would not complete it, Hamilton decided to show three preparatory versions simultaneously. In addition, he selected thirty paintings tracing the development of his art, featuring single-point perspective and the depiction of interior spaces, the sacred imagery of the Italian Renaissance, and allusions to the art of Marcel Duchamp. (National Gallery of London)… (more)

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Enter me, 35, seeing Rembrandt Van Rijn’s final self-portrait in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, July 2014. That museum has Vermeer’s The Girl With The Pearl Earing too, but the 1669 self-portrait is the true gem of the collection. I was struck by lightning. I had seen paintings by Rembrandt before, but never one of his late works. The way he painted his hair, topped with a kind of turban or ribbon, is simply stunning. In a way, what I saw was the birth of impressionist and even expressionist painting, already in the 17th century. It took me half an hour before I could continue to the next painting, and before leaving the museum, I returned to it again. A profound delight.

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The authors do a great job of putting Rembrandt firmly in his historical context. To our eyes Rembrandt might seem old hat – he’s such a part of our visual collective subconscious – but he’s not. Even today he remains fresh and relevant, and back in the 17th century he simply was in a league of his own. The texts feature quite a lot of quotations of 17th and 18th century art historians, and they succeed in proving the exceptional, revolutionary nature of Rembrandt. And that’s not just because of his technique – his brush strokes, his command of light, etc. – but also his command of composition and emotion, and the specific, singular way he chose to portray subjects and topics that were common at the time. He was a true genius, on multiple accounts. The book also zooms in a bit on Rembrandt eventful, tragic life. It’s not a biography however, the focus is on his art throughout.

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