about | Rembrandt's Dog
7/17/15, 9:26 PM
Painting is a dog, not a robot Rembrandt’s Dog is the mascot of an independent art initiative, based in Amsterdam The initiative (more precise: it’s predecessor) was founded in januari 2010 Rembrandt’s Dog questions the position and relevance of painting in the age of digitalization In the 17th Century, Amsterdam was hometown of Rembrandt van Rhyn. On his most famous masterpiece (The Night Watch, Rijksmuseum) the Dutch master depicted a dog in the most dark foreground of the militia. In the age of digitalization, painting shares the position of that dog Given that the chiaroscuro-driven framework and inner logic of digital mass media is focused a on what can be given attention easily (the spectacle or yesterday’s dead symbolism and conventions) Rembrandt’s old masterpiece offers that same cold gift in the form of a dead bird, hanging on the belt of the girl, fully lit. It is the mascot of the depicted Amsterdam’s Militia Company of District II. The dead bird was painted with an almost photographic precision, as everything else on the canvas that was intended to catch the viewer’s attention. The bird is the complete antipathies of the other animal on the canvas: the dog in the foreground. The dog is badly lit but alive and vital, beautiful and uncanny in the shadows, unleashed, depicted with only a few livingly brush strokes. Both animals are hardly noticed, yet contribute as key elements in the whole of the masterpiece. Their dichotomy is indispensable to understand not only the masterpiece, but the whole visual media playing out in this new millennium. Painting has become Rembrandt’s dog It not only can be simple and beautiful to venture away from mass-produced imaging technology, the magic lanterns of industrialized media that merge more subtle than ever with delusive strategies of market or institutional hypercontrol. There is more to painting than that. Ultimately, painting is about real connection, even physical contact (paint!) as the paramount of communication [continue reading] or [visit Rembrandt's Dog's List]
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http://verfhond.nl/2015-about
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about | Rembrandt's Dog
7/17/15, 9:26 PM
. . . . . LW 30.5.2015 Translation credits: Daniel Mullen, painter
http://verfhond.nl/2015-about
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