Rembrandt in Sydney

A week ago (the Friday before Lent started), I headed into the city for a traveling exhibit of Dutch Masters. On the way in, I noticed an old Ford Falcon, driving across the Sydney Harbour Bridge along side the bus (1). This is the same kind of car my brother Jorge and I had when driving up and back from Florida to college in St. Louis. I think ours was a simpler car. This one looked snazzy!

Before we get to Rembrandt et al, I went through a quick tour of the Art Museum of New South Wales. In the pictures, I tried to take a photo of the title/artist card, too. I won't describe each one…you can take it in yourself. These are just some that caught my eye.

This piece of art is like a 3-D collage (2-7). Each box seemed like a work of art itself. All together, it felt almost like a display case at a science museum or a jewelry store.

I love the way the artist captured the light and atmosphere in this next image (8). And the same with this other huge canvas of some cows in a field (10). Very striking, very Aussie!

I stumbled into the Japanese wing and came across these magnificent prints, again thinking of my same brother and the Japanese art history course we took together at Washington University. (12-15) I especially love the print of the bridge (15). And look at this piece (17). It is a painting but looks like a print or a collage. Though modern, it fits with the other Asian pieces.

Here are some other permanent works. There were so many paintings in this one room that they just hung them all, one atop the other in the gallery. Sadly, you have a hard time seeing them becuase the art has no space to breathe.

Here is Queen Esther (19)…so marvelously exotic! And these women looked like they could fit into a sci-fi movie (21); don't you wish headdresses would come back? And I love the precision in this image of the angel appearing to the women at the tomb (23). This sculpture is larger than life (probably twice life size) and is new to the museum (25-26). He looks out the window at the gardens outside.

I love the prints by Thea Proctor—very graphic (28, 30, 32). Margaret Preston paints with a similar graphic eye, using bold lines around her subjects (36, 38, 40).

Lastly in the museum, here is some of the exhibit of the Dutch Masters. I came to see the show because one of my parishioners went gaga over this painting by Rembrandt of Peter denying Christ (55). I have to confess, I am not a big fan of the Dutch artists, apart from Vermeer (see the woman in blue looking out the window, 59). I do like some of the paintings of interiors of churches (51,53) as I always wonder how the heck they were able to get such precision from a brush and paint. And this exterior of a red-roofed home reminds me of Americana paintings of farms (57). For the most part, very little Rembrandt (one room of a dozen or so works including 55), though he was named in the title of the show!

Outside, some fun outdoor art caught my eye. This is a staircase between different street levels near the older part of town (60-62). Is this Queen Victoria? Hard to tell, though I doubt it. The image is made from plaster over the bricks of the walkway. And this is a screen to block a construction site (63). You can see through it though, giving you an idea of what the street corner looked like in the past.

Finally some lovely photos of a recent sunset, here in Kellyville (64-65). The clouds are at different heights and so the setting sun colored one white and another a peach. Really pretty. We're still in summer with temps reaching up to the lower 90's in the day. Today was particularly humid, though that has been rarer this year. Hoping the cooler temps are forecast for this week!