Shipbuilder and His Wife

The Dutch Masters   ... ahhh

Walking into the Dutch Masters show is like walking into Amsterdam in the 1600's.  You get a real sense of how everything was, the rich lives with the posh portraits with lots of color, the middle class with less color, and then the poorer people with very little to monochrome color.  One great thing to see is that no matter what class the people lived, they loved their dogs!  We see dogs in all classes of portraits from rich, to middle class to poor.  (Can you tell I love dogs?)  Actually, my husband pointed that out to me.

I went to see the Dutch Masters exhibit "Class Distinctions:Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer" at the MFA  for the second time (and I know I will go back again because I am lucky enough to be close!)  The exhibit is wonderful!  This painting "The Shipbuilder and his Wife" was my favorite and not just because it is on loan from the Queen of England!!  The colors in the man's face are just stunning.  The attention to detail in some places and and the looseness of brushstrokes in others is just awesome!  this is painting at it's finest as the forms are most important and are rendered exquisitely.  (Form is more important than color).  The Dutch Masters really knew how to turn the form and paint!  This is what we as artists should strive for.  

If you have been to the exhibit and have had the same reaction (jaw dropping) to this painting or others, please let me know!  If there is another painting you love, let me know that too!  I will be going back again, again, and again.. 

Posted by Sharon Morley, November, 2015