 Pieter de Hooch | The renovation of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is years behind schedule, and most of their enormous art collection is currently in storage. Now 128 of these closeted works have come to the Pacific Northwest, where the Vancouver Art Gallery is hosting the largest exhibition of art from the era of Rembrandt and Vermeer ever held in the region. KUOW art critic Gary Faigin recently traveled north to view the show, and he joins us now with his thoughts. The Dutch window onto the direct experience of the ordinary swung open very briefly, roughly spanning the period between the first masterwork of Hals (1615), and the last painting of Vermeer (1675). Dutch artwork before 1615 groaned under the weight of Mannerist excess; after 1700 it descended into drawing room formality or decadent nostalgia |
