400 years, and still trading

This year marks the 400th anniversary of Dutch - Turkish trade relations, and a good amount of Dutch art is visiting Istanbul. 

One of the exhibits is titled "Van Gogh Alive" and features projected images of Van Gogh's work on about 40 very large screens.  As you wander around the exhibit area, you feel as if you are in the paintings.  Smiles were on the faces of all attendees.  A wonderful application of modern, digital capabilities to timeless paintings.

An Australian organization put this exhibit together, and if it comes to your neighborhood, it is worth a visit. In Istanbul, the exhibit is located at Antrepo, just next to Istanbul Modern.

Up the Bosphorus, and also on the European side of Istanbul, at the Sakip Sabanci museum, is an exhibit titled "Rembrandt and Contemporaries".  This picture is not clear, but it is one of a few charts that depict the happenings in The Netherlands and in the Ottoman Empire during the 17th century.  It was interesting to see two very different cultures at the same period of time.

There are a few paintings by Rembrandt, including "The Music Lesson", ...

Vermeer's "The Love Letter", ...

"Still Life with a Fish" by Pieter Claesz, ...

and some very translucent white asparagus.  It's clear why we call them the Dutch Masters.  It would be great to know how to paint this translucency, not to mention, ...

the satin shirt and velvet robe in another painting.  Creating shine and softness with brushstrokes will be a question for my art teacher.  

These techniques are much further ahead of my current attempts to sketch in charcoal, where I still need to learn not to wipe off the right side of my picture with the side of my hand while working on the left side...

Thanks to the Dutch for wonderful exhibits, as well as a change in some museum rules.  It was nice to be able to take non-flash photos in the exhibit.  I also read that one museum was not charging admission for any visitor in a wheelchair and accompanying person.  Dutch pragmatism allowed, no doubt because of a successful 400 years together.