Caravaggio and Rembrandt, two great tastes that go well together

August 6, 2009 11:34 AM

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam invites you to compare Caravaggio and Rembrandt. For an overview of Rembrandt's work here are Rembrandt van Rijn: Life and Work and A Web Catalogue of Rembrandt Paintings. For Caravaggio there's caravaggio.com which makes use of the Italian website Tutta l'opera del Caravaggio.
posted by Kattullus (13 comments total)

As far as I could tell there are no sources for scads of high-quality, high-resolution downloads of either artist's work, though rumors of a Rembrandt supersite being prepared by The Rembrandt Research Project.
posted by Kattullus at 11:36 AM on August 6, 2009

I love the Rijksmuseum so very much. It's one of my very favorite museums in the entire world. I've spent days and days inside there, and I'm still not sure I've seen everything.
posted by dejah420 at 12:04 PM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

For the last six months, my girlfriend has been talking about a Rembrandt etching that she's desperately trying to sell.

If anybody knows a good art dealer she contact, let me know.
posted by destinyland at 12:30 PM on August 6, 2009

I love both of these artists, especially Rembrandt, but the comparisons seem to be stretching at times. Still, great find, thanks!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:54 PM on August 6, 2009

Yeah, some of the comparisons are a bit... well... spurious. But they did make me see the artists in a new light and gave focus to details of paintings I know quite well, such as Rembrandt's Belshazzar's Feast, I had never given second thought, like the fruit and the face in the background.
posted by Kattullus at 1:15 PM on August 6, 2009

I was thinking of Caravggio today. I saw some of his paintings in the Contarelli chapel. They are stupendously good. Compositionally daring, so vivid and such fluid beauty in his handling of paint.

Thanks for the post.
posted by multivalent at 1:42 PM on August 6, 2009

I love the Rijksmuseum so very much. It's one of my very favorite museums in the entire world. I've spent days and days inside there, and I'm still not sure I've seen everything.

Well, at the moment, that's not really a problem. The good stuff is in a shed out back until 2013 while the rest is closed for renovation
posted by smackfu at 3:16 PM on August 6, 2009

mmm...asbestos abatement! yeah, i was very disappointed that the whole thing wasn't open when i went a few years back, but did quite enjoy the hall of masterpieces that was open...particularly the vermeer that was an exterior scene...quite obvious that he used a camera obscura for his interiors...
posted by sexyrobot at 3:28 PM on August 6, 2009

smackfu: Well, at the moment, that's not really a problem. The good stuff is in a shed out back until 2013 while the rest is closed for renovation

Good to know. Now I'm not nearly as disappointed that Amsterdam is out of my reach at the moment.
posted by dejah420 at 3:48 PM on August 6, 2009

Great post, I will need to spend some quality time here.
For the art fan in general and the Caravaggio fan in particular, I will recommend The Lost Painting.
posted by Edward L at 3:57 PM on August 6, 2009

I saw the exhibition for real shortly after it opened, this was about a year ago I guess. Now it seems to be just available virtually on the internet. The paintings (Rembrandt) are spectacular and well worth a visit to Amsterdam just for that*. "St Jerome writing" (Caravaggio) is one of my all-time favorite paintings; I've tried to find a place on the web that will sell a poster reproduction of it to me, at a reasonable price, with no success to date.

* Yes, only a limited sample are viewable until 2013 (2015? 2025?) while they renovate most of the museum building. Personally I find that's a feature rather than a bug since I tend to suffer from TMI (too many paintings) generally in museums. I find that museums which only show a few, selected paintings / objects and make a coherent link between each of them tend to stay in my memory for far longer than others would. For example, I have almost no recollection of the 1000-odd paintings in the Prado in Madrid, but the Rena Sofia museum next door was fantastically organised and I remember almost 30% of its 40-odd paintings, no mean feat for me.
posted by spherical_perceptions at 6:16 PM on August 6, 2009

When I study Caravaggio's paintings, my mind starts supplying a soundtrack, usually When the Music's Over by The Doors.
posted by Tube at 6:57 PM on August 6, 2009

Thanks so much for these links.

I love Caravaggio. His use of red is awesome, his figures are incredible, and his lighting always seems to pull me me in. No one (except maybe Vermeer) could capture light quite like him.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 7:10 PM on August 6, 2009