Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn - The Night Wat

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Inspired by: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn - The Night Watch

The Night Watch acquired its title in the 1790s. By then the painting’s varnish had darkened so much it looked like a night scene. Before then it was known by several titles, one being The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch. Captain Cocqcommissioned the painting of his men, but only 18 of the 34 characters in the painting are portraits, the remaining are symbolic.

In 1642 the painting was hung in the club house of the civil militia. It stayed there for 70 years. In 1715 the painting was moved from there to the Town Hall. It didn’t fit there so it was cropped on all four sides to fit between the building’s narrow columns. Fortunately, Cocq had ordered a small copy to be made and The Riksmuseum used this smaller version to recreate the missing parts, which can now be seen again (the Santa Classic is the old version of the painting).
Rembrandt loved to stick himself and family members in his paintings. He is way in the back, and all you can see is his profile from the neck up. The little girl who functions symbolically as the group' mascot is daughter Saskia. Son Titus’ ear is just behind her.
Museum fires have caused the loss of great works of art, so Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has gone to great lengths to protect Rembrandt’s masterpiece. To preserve The Night Watch in emergencies, in 1934 the Rijksmuseum installed a trap door complete with escape slide. 
To see the original: https://bit.ly/4jSxLAf

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Peasant Wedding

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Inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Peasant Wedding

Brueghel was well known for his peasant scenes; he was often referred to as ‘Peasant’ Breughel. Through his paintings we came to learn more about village life of the 16th century. Like so many other moralistic genre paintings this is filled with symbolistic references. Here gluttony and poverty stand out, but possibly lack of virginity. The paper crown hung over the bride is in two parts which implies she may already be with child.

Pieter’s son, Brueghel the Younger made a copy of his father’s work, and a couple mysteries appear.  In the elders version, there is an additional foot under the food tray (a door off its hinges). It seems the man in the front of the tray has three feet.

Is this a joke by the painter? Clearly Brueghel the Younger, didn’t think it was funny for in his painting the third foot is eliminated altogether. Another object that went missing is a large codpiece (a leather phallus sheath, cod was slang for scrotum) on the bagpiper. The younger attached this accoutrement to the bagpiper, but Dad’s has gone missing. Through infrared photography they found that senior’s codpiece had been replaced with a black patch. This was not the first time the elder was censored. In his bawdy, The Wedding Dance, several codpieces were removed from the frolicking peasants, only to be discovered during a 1941 restoration. I guess Pieter was not the only one with scruples

See Original: https://bit.ly/3r0aLbF

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema - A Reading from Homer

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Inspired by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema - A Reading from Homer

Lawrence Alma-Tadema was one of the principal classical-subject painters of the nineteenth century. He became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Greek and Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors. He was born in the Netherlands as Laurens Tadema, but he emigrated to England in 1870. When he tried to make his niche in the art world, he changed the spelling of his first name to the more English “Lawrence”. He included his middle name “Alma” as part of his surname, so he would be listed amongst the “A’s” in exhibition catalogues.
His meticulous archaeological research into Roman architecture, led to his paintings being used as source material by Hollywood directors in such films as: “Ben Hur”, “Cleopatra” and “Gladiator”. For “The Ten Commandments” Cecil B. DeMille would customarily spread out prints of Alma-Tadema paintings to indicate to his set designers the look he wanted to achieve.
He became one of the wealthiest painters of the 19th century. He was even knighted in 1899. But like so many great painters his work was mostly ignored after his death. His painterly prowess was not reestablished until fifty years later. One of his most celebrated paintings “the Finding of Moses” was sold in 1960 for $400, the same painting sold for $36,000,000 at Sotheby’s in 2010. If you bought $400 of Apple stock in 1980 it would only be worth $280,000 today.

To see the original: https://bit.ly/42t2Ylf