Andrew Lambirth delights in the National Gallery’s exhibition of a Golden Age
I’ve been reading Still Life with a Bridle by the poet Zbigniew Herbert in preparation for Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Franz Hals at the National Gallery. It’s a fascinating collection of essays which examines and pays tribute to the Golden Age of Dutch art and the society that produced it. Packed with unusual and stimulating perceptions, not to mention poetic inventions, the book only increases one’s sense of wonder at such an efflorescence of talent concentrated in one unprepossessing place over a relatively short period. (This exhibition covers the years 1599–1683 and runs until 16 September, sponsored by Shell.) Herbert quotes a contemporary description of the Dutch as ‘merchants of butter who milk cows in the trough of the ocean, and live in forests they have sown themselves, or in swamps changed into gardens’. He comments: ‘Who could fail to notice in this sentence an unintended note of admiration?’ And it was with admiration that I found myself touring the National Gallery’s latest show.
Back we are in the basement of the Sainsbury Wing, the brief moment of showing temporary exhibitions in the daylight-flooded upstairs galleries now but a happy memory of Velázquez and (to a lesser extent) Renoir.
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