A Masterpiece by Gerrit Dou

Hi, welcome to Stories of Art. My name is Karel Huidekoper. Today I'd like to tell you something about this little painting by Gerrit Douw, which is in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. And it was made around about 1630-1635. It's obviously a woman reading the Bible. Now you have to know that Gerrit Douw was a very successful painter in the Golden Age in the Netherlands. And he had been a pupil of Rembrandt. You can see a lot of Rembrandt's influence in this painting, especially in the way he tells his story, because there is a story to be told here. But I'll get to that. First, it's often been claimed that this is a portrait of Rembrandt's mother. Now, Rembrandt had been Douw's teacher when both of them lived in Leiden, a smaller city, the city where Rembrandt had been born and raised. At some point, Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam to pursue the next phase of his career. And Douw stayed behind in Leiden and had his own career in Leiden, and was extraordinarily successful. He was one of the best-paid painters in the entire century. Now, as I said, it's often been claimed that this is Rembrandt's mother. Neeltje Zuidbroek is her name. But why would he paint Rembrandt's mother? Well, for one, they were close, they were friends. He visited them, we gather. But on the other hand, it could be any old face. The thing is, we don't have anything to compare it with. We don't have a picture ID saying, this is Neeltje Zuidbroek, and then we can compare it to it. The only thing we can really say is that Douw painted her several times, and so did Rembrandt. Rembrandt used this same face a couple of times, like in this case. But back to her, it could be any face, because Rembrandt and his followers used faces over and over again. If they had a face that fitted to something, they simply used it. And it could be any model. But it's just more fun to think of her as Rembrandt's mother, I suppose. So, let's keep it at that. Douw actually painted this version of the same subject, several years later, in 1640, which is the same woman. And it could signify something, it could also not signify something, because this is the same woman in the year that Neeltje Zuidbroek died, in 1640. Again, we really don't know. But let's go back to this lovely painting. I think the best version he made of this woman reading, it tells a story, as I said before. She is reading the Bible, and it's done in this very, very precise, very meticulous way. Every fabric is easily recognizable, and it's done in this very, very precise way. Every wrinkle in her hands, in her face, in everything, is done precisely. And this is what Rembrandt was famous for early in his career. That's what he did. Later on, he would change, he would develop, but this is what he did originally. And also, he made these compositions that he made very tight, and he pulled the story closer together. He used that to tell his story, and that's what he does here. Because, if you realize, she's holding her Bible a little bit close. A little too close, perhaps. And that's mainly because of her age. Even a younger person would probably not hold a Bible that close to his or her face. But when you get older, chances are you want to hold it further away, because that's easier to focus. You know, with your eyes deteriorating over time. You can also see that she's very, very much focused on what she's reading. She holds the Bible up very close. It sort of signifies that she's really into it. But also, look at her mouth. Her lips are tense. She's wording what she's reading. She's making the words with her mouth. So she's really, really concentrating on what she's seeing. Now, if we zoom in a little bit to the text, to what she's reading, we can actually make out which part of the Bible she is reading. And that is not a surprising part of the Bible, because it says Evangelicum of Luke, and that means the Gospel of Luke. And, of course, one of the four Gospels, but the most useful one to painters, because Luke was the patron saint of painters. Now, also, you can see this is an illustrated Bible, which only rich people would have had, and it has a picture. And the picture is pretty difficult to make out, unless you figure out which part of the Bible she's actually reading, which chapter, because you can see these letters that are not the easiest to make out, but it says Kalp, which is a chapter, and it then says one letter, an I, and the same letter again, which I hold to be 19, which would make sense with the picture, because in Luke 19, they arrive in Jericho, and there's a man there who's rich, but he's short. And he wants to see the arrival of Jesus, and so he climbs a tree to see him. And Jesus notices him, stops, and addresses him by name, and he wants to stay at his house. And that's what happens. And if you look closely, you can see this is someone in a tree, and there is someone standing in front of it. If you know the story, you can recognize it. And that someone, you might even see that he has sort of a rays coming around his head, so that's unlikely Jesus. So that sort of fits with the Bible passage. Now, it is sort of confusing. Why is she reading this part of the Bible? I can't really be sure. Why this chapter? There are better ones in Luke, I would say. This is kind of a random one, because all that happens in chapter 19 is they go to this man's house, and Jesus tells a parable about money, mainly, and about ownership. And that's it. But the odd thing is, there is something much more into painting in the chapter before. In Luke chapter 18, in the last couple of verses, there's this short passage where Jesus encounters a beggar who is blind. And he calls him the son of David, and he implores him to help him see again. And Jesus does. So he cures the blind man. And that's just the last couple of lines in chapter 18 of Luke. And so that would be the bit of text above the picture you see in this Bible, where Jesus cures blindness. And of course, the curing of a blind man fits perfectly within painting, because it's the visual art. It's just a sort of reference that Dou would make. He would sort of hide references in plain sight. They're visual puzzles. So if you figured it out, you go, I found it. But if we zoom out again, we see this lovely painting of an elderly woman reading the Bible in this almost perfectly heavenly light. And that's what Dou could do so incredibly well. I have to go to see to go to the Aix Museum to see it for real. And they have lots of other Dou's and Rembrandts as well, and a lot of other paintings. So you have to go there anyway. This is what I wanted to tell you today. Before you go, please hit like and of course subscribe, because then you can see all the other videos that I'm posting. And I hope to see you in another one. Bye for now.