A great master of the Dutch Golden Age is honoured in Québec City
QUÉBEC CITY, July 5, 2023 /CNW/ - The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) is proud to confirm the presentation in the summer of 2024 of the Rembrandt. The Art of Etching exhibition for the enjoyment of visitors. From April 25 to September 2, 2024, the public can view the work of painter and engraver Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn (1606-1669), one of the great masters of European art.
A major figure of the Dutch Golden Age, the artist contributed decisively to the flourishing of Baroque Art and is recognized for his highly personal treatment of chiaroscuro and his very modern humanism. Rembrandt's art is celebrated for its vivid imagination and emotional richness and has been universally admired since the 17th century. The MNBAQ is privileged to welcome to Québec City this exclusive Canadian engagement.
A major $500 000 contribution
The exhibition, produced through a generous loan from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, will put the spotlight on the MNBAQ in the summer of 2024. It has been made possible through the Entente de développement culturel entre le gouvernement du Québec et la Ville de Québec. The $500 000 contribution comes from the Mesure d'aide financière à l'intention des musées d'État pour des expositions internationales majeures.
"Hosting international exhibitions falls within the scope of the MNBAQ's mission, which affords our institution a leading position on prestigious international circuits. This major contribution is enabling the MNBAQ to present the Rembrandt. The Art of Etching exhibition and, above all, to celebrate in Québec City the work of an innovative artist who transcends generations. I know that the strength and the humanity of the engravings exhibited will touch visitors' hearts," Jean–Luc Murray, Director General of the MNBAQ, noted enthusiastically. "I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to Québec City and the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications for their essential support over the years. Many Quebecers will be able to enjoy the work of one of art history's great masters in the Capitale-Nationale through the cultural development agreement," Mr. Murray concluded.
Rembrandt, the absolute master of engraving
Rembrandt was profoundly innovative and revolutionized the art of engraving. He adopted a resolutely experimental approach and developed the process to the utmost. Like Dürer, Goya, or Picasso, Rembrandt is regarded as one of the greatest engravers of all time. He produced some of the most celebrated works in the history of the medium and his impact on the discipline is still relevant today.
The exhibition will present Rembrandt's engravings, which established the artist's reputation and have always been particularly appreciated by art lovers. Rembrandt produced 300 engravings between 1625 and 1665. Most of the works are etchings, a complex technique in which the image is etched on a copper plate using an acid. For Rembrandt, etching was a full-fledged art form equal to painting that he researched passionately throughout his career. Moreover, almost all his prints are original works independent of his paintings.
Rare, remarkable works
The 80 works selected will offer a panorama that reveals Rembrandt's outstanding skill as an engraver in the human, aesthetic, and technical dimensions of engraving. The exhibition will include the artist's foremost masterpieces, i.e., The Hundred Guilder Print (circa 1648), The Three Crosses (1653), and The Little Tomb (circa 1657), and other outstanding works.
The exhibition encompasses all the topics that Rembrandt broached. His self-portraits reconstitute the artist's biography while his religious prints propose a unique, spectacular interpretation of the Bible. His landscapes reveal an artist of exquisite sensitivity. His portraits and genre scenes display the full diversity of Dutch society at the time.
The exhibition will also enable visitors to see Rembrandt in his historic period and environment as a resident of Amsterdam, a thriving, cosmopolitan city and brilliant hub of intellectual and artistic life, and an inhabitant of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, one of the great European powers of the 17th century. It will also reveal the vagaries of the artist's personal life, including the painful loss of loved ones and the serious financial difficulties that darkened his final years.
Other artists and a Québec touch round out the exhibition
The exhibition will also display several works by other artists from whom Rembrandt drew inspiration and the work of some of his students and collaborators. Visitors can examine several posthumous printings of the master's works and compare the original prints and the later versions.
What is more, several works by Québec artists from the MNBAQ's collections will round out the varied body of Dutch work, including engravings inspired by Rembrandt's practice and Dutch art in the Golden Age from the standpoint of iconography and style or that illustrate the specific use of chiaroscuro.
The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, in a nutshell
The works in this exhibition are drawn from the celebrated print collection of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, founded in 1849. Its collection comprises more than 150 000 artworks created from 1350 to the present and includes some of Europe's biggest groupings of Dutch, Impressionist, and Surrealist paintings. The museum is closed for several years to undergo major renovations. In 2021 it inaugurated the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, the world's first publicly accessible art storage facility, where its entire collection is accessible to the public.
The Rembrandt. The Art of Etching exhibition is being organized in collaboration with the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. It has been made possible through a cultural development agreement between the Québec government and Québec City. The contribution comes from the Mesure d'aide financière à l'intention des musées d'État pour des expositions internationales majeures. The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec is a government corporation subsidized by the Québec government.
Rembrandt. The Art of Etching
Pierre Lassonde Pavilion
From April 25 to September 2, 2024
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