Thursday, October 30, 2008

Rembrandt and Lievens

I just finished reading Rembrandt The Painter at Work by Ernst Van de Wetering, so when I saw that the National Gallery was having a show called Jan Lievens, A Dutch Master Rediscovered, I recognized the name. Lievens started out as a friendly rival to Rembrandt and they shared many of the same techniques. It was great to go see some of the techniques up-close. One of the techniques that they shared was to use the other end of the brush to create embossed lines, squiggles, in the hair and beard. It is just so surprising to see it. It's like they were having fun and that's just not something that I would ever imagine. It was also great to see the textures up-close like the fur and gold-embossed capes. Also, there were some really beautiful etchings of old men. (photo from nga)