Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch' in detail.
Posted: Thu May 14, 2020 1:56 pm
They are restoring 'The Night Watch' (actually 'Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq') so they took a bunch of very high resolution pictures. You can zoom in to minute detail here.
In a sense, it's kind of missing the point. I stood in front of this in 1968 having walked a mile in the sunshine from the Heineken Brewery - a tour and a sample or two of what I then thought was one of the world's great beers. (It's OK, I'm better now.) This picture is approx 12 x 14 feet so it won't fit over your mantlepiece. 168 sq feet = more than five 4 x 8 sheets. I've had smaller apartments. You have to stand back 20 feet or more just to see what's going on.
It's one of those sights that is so awe-inspiring that you don't forget it. All the more so in my case because I wasn't expecting it. My friend Sid and I were hitchhiking around Europe: he to see the cultural sites and me to swig as much free beer as possible. So our planned itinerary - apart from sleeping rough for three weeks with an occasional night in a youth hostel to get a shower because after a while you can't get upwind of yourself - was a mixed bag of brewery and museum visits. Sid insisted on the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam - I had no idea. He was familiar with this painting from books and as far as I recall I wasn't. Some things take your breath away and sober you right up. If you are even in Amsterdam please see this picture.
Slightly cropped:
In a sense, it's kind of missing the point. I stood in front of this in 1968 having walked a mile in the sunshine from the Heineken Brewery - a tour and a sample or two of what I then thought was one of the world's great beers. (It's OK, I'm better now.) This picture is approx 12 x 14 feet so it won't fit over your mantlepiece. 168 sq feet = more than five 4 x 8 sheets. I've had smaller apartments. You have to stand back 20 feet or more just to see what's going on.
It's one of those sights that is so awe-inspiring that you don't forget it. All the more so in my case because I wasn't expecting it. My friend Sid and I were hitchhiking around Europe: he to see the cultural sites and me to swig as much free beer as possible. So our planned itinerary - apart from sleeping rough for three weeks with an occasional night in a youth hostel to get a shower because after a while you can't get upwind of yourself - was a mixed bag of brewery and museum visits. Sid insisted on the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam - I had no idea. He was familiar with this painting from books and as far as I recall I wasn't. Some things take your breath away and sober you right up. If you are even in Amsterdam please see this picture.
Slightly cropped: