Review of Rembrandt’s Light at Dulwich Picture Gallery, following a SELHuG visit on the 13th October.
Go and see this exhibition if you can before it ends on 2 February 2020. It is a gorgeous exhibition – not huge but substantial enough to leave a lasting impression of Rembrandt’s artistry and genius.
Rembrandt died 350 years ago but the work is so fresh, it’s as if it had been painted just now, something the Times review picked up on: “Girl at a Window appears to float like an illusion before you. She seems to be there in the flesh.”
As light is the subject of the exhibition, each room is lit differently to conjure the conditions that Rembrandt and his students worked in, evoking the house on Breestraat in the heart of Amsterdam where he lived between 1639 and 1658 – his ideal home.
The Dulwich Picture House curators collaborated with Star Wars cinematographer, Peter Suschitzky to create this show and it is a lot of fun – especially the room with Christ and St Mary Magdalene at the Tomb which conjures the dawn light when Mary meets the gardener, and realises it is Jesus.
