Celebration station reviews full#

“Time to kick them all out,” one Shakespearean says to another. They have scrawled on the wall of the New Ohio Theater “The Jews Will Not Replase Us.” They actively harass Jews on the street and torch their homes. Shakespeare, a character in this rewrite, is not only a bigot he’s inspired a white supremacist gang who call themselves the Shakespeareans. It presents a lovely, lyrical and cyclical way of thinking about art, looping back to the beginning: a young man in a small Dutch town, who started out by looking first at himself and his immediate surroundings, then bloomed.Is “The Merchant of Venice” antisemitic? Was Shakespeare? “The Shylock and the Shakespeareans,” playwright and director Edward Einhorn’s retelling of the Bard’s long-controversial play, shuts down ambiguity or debate.

Ferdinand Bol’s Old Man with Flowing Beard (1642) reflects the artist’s portraiture style, alongside a 1650 landscape by Jan Lieven and a biblical scene from Aert de Gelder, the latter bringing Rembrandt’s legacy into the 18th century. His 1638 etching of Adam and Eve sits next to one of Albrecht Dürer’s Harrowing of Hell woodcut prints as the exhibition winds to a close, the works of his contemporaries, students and successors line the wall, representing aspects of Rembrandt’s work. The NGV’s exhibition places Rembrandt in conversation with his interests and influences, as well as those he influenced. It’s a creative and unique way to breathe physicality into a part of Rembrandt’s story that is well known but rarely physically manifested. It provides a glimpse into the artist’s global mind: busts and shellfish sit alongside musical instruments, pinned butterflies, a 17th century Japanese helmet and ceramics. Based on an inventory of his belongings upon his bankruptcy, the NGV’s recreation contains a peculiar assortment of objects, drawn from the gallery’s collection as well as from the Melbourne Museum and the State Library of Victoria. Rembrandt never left the Netherlands, but as his star rose, then his wealth, he began passionately collecting curios from all around the world.

Celebration station reviews full#

Photograph: Tom RossĪ distinctive aspect of this show is a recreation of the artist’s famed Kunstkammer, or cabinet of curiosities: a room full of exotic and eclectic historical, artistic and scientific treasures. The NGV’s recreation of Rembrandt’s Kunstkammer. To create a sense of depth and an atmosphere of weather or sunlight in a small monochrome medium is so hard,” Kayser says. “Looking at them in a very focused way, they’re beautifully observed. They’re gorgeously dramatic, all romance and storm, as the artist’s keen eye turns to bucolic scenes. Landscapes also feature in the show, notably the oil painting The Mill (1645-1648) and his largest landscape etching, The Three Trees (1643). Seeing the differences between each state, from shading to detail, gives a greater sense of the artistry at hand. Two states each are shown for The Three Crosses (1653) and Christ Presented to the People (1655), of a total of four and eight states respectively. Some etchings are displayed in various states, providing a glimpse into the artist’s process. A digital version of the work sits beneath it, allowing viewers to zoom in and appreciate the fine points.

These are impressive for their meticulous level of craftsmanship: the largest, known as the Hundred Guilder Print (1647-49), renders various events from the New Testament’s Matthew 19 in painstaking detail. The focus on printmaking in this exhibition – there are more than 100 etchings on display – reinforces the form’s versatility and importance in Rembrandt’s body of work, as a central site of creative thinking. ‘The focus on printmaking in this exhibition … reinforces versatility and importance in Rembrandt’s body of work’ Photograph: Tom Ross