January 21 -- March 22, 2009
Hedley Gallery
The Morris Museum will host a selection of Rembrandt’s masterpiece etchings from the respected collection of John Villarino of Los Angeles. The Villarino Collection is considered among the world’s most authoritative sources of classical etchings and lithographs and features 35 rare etchings completed between the years 1629 and 1654.
The title of the exhibition, Sordid and Sacred, describes the ambiguous nature of Rembrandt’s approach to the subject of street beggars. While the works reflect contemporary Dutch Baroque society’s abhorrence of the homeless beggars on their streets, Rembrandt also saw these unfortunates in biblical terms; the anguish of their humanity. Rembrandt, the master draftsman, imbued each line with the drama of this dilemma: the sordid and the sacred exist in tandem in each desperate life he portrayed.
The exhibition reveals Rembrandt’s genius in his approach to form a medium. The etching medium, with its rich range of line, shade and tone, is often approached as an engraver’s art. Rembrandt, on the other hand, renders it as a triumph of drawing. Though he was confined to use a stylus on a metal plate instead of lead or chalk or crayon across a page, his lines are nevertheless as fluid and expressive. These etchings are a triumph of Baroque art.
Monday, March 9
6:30 p.m.
$10/members & $15/ non-members
Join Rembrandt scholar Franklin Robinson, Ph.D., director of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, for a lecture about this Dutch master. Offered in conjunction with the exhibition, Sordid & Sacred, Robinson will discuss Rembrandt’s life and extraordinary work, with a focus on his etchings.
Prior to his appointment at Cornell in 1992, Robinson was director of the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design Museum. A graduate of Harvard University, he taught six years at Dartmouth College and four years at Williams College, where he was director of the graduate program in the History of Art and also director of the Williams College Museum. He is a widely published scholar of 17th century Dutch art, as well as a Fulbright Fellow.
The lecture will take place in the Bickford Theatre. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged. Call 973.971.3720.
|
