'Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age' Exhibit Comes to Frist Center 2/01-5/19

The first gallery will also present works by Rembrandt's teacher, the Amsterdam painter Pieter Lastman, and Rembrandt's own students and followers. Rembrandt was famous in his own day and ran an important workshop.  While his exact number of pupils is unknown, it may have been as many as 40 to 50. "Rembrandt's students copied and collaborated on his paintings and it can be difficult to distinguish their work from his own," Kennedy observes. "Since the early 19^th century, each generation of art historians has sought to define what was painted by Rembrandt, his pupils, his workshop, his circle and his followers. In this exhibition, we get to see how scholars are presently interpreting Rembrandt's body of work."

After the opening gallery with works by Rembrandt and his circle, the rest of the paintings in the exhibition will be organized thematically, with galleries dedicated to: Portraiture: Faces of the Dutch Golden Age (featuring works by Frans Hals); Biblical Histories: The Impact of Calvinism on Religious Art in the Dutch Republic (Leonaert Bramer); Dutch Peasant Scenes and the Perils of Debauchery (Jan Steen); Domestic Interiors: Inner Worlds of the Dutch Republic (Pieter de Hooch, Gerard Ter Borch); Still-Life Painting: The World in Objects (Willem Kalf; Rachel Ruysch); Dutch Architectural Painting: Cityscapes and Church Interiors (Emmanuel de Witte); Marine Painting and the Global Dutch Economy (Ludolf Backhuysen); and Dutch Landscapes: Local Scenery and Pride of Place (Jacob van Ruisdael).

Frist Center Educator for Youth and Family Programs, Keri Jhaveri, has developed an educational component to enhance the visitors' experience of Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age. In addition to 16 educational text panels, there will be 14 QR codes placed throughout the galleries that offer access to additional information designed to help visitors better understand the Dutch Golden Age and the social environment in which these objects were made. The text panels will describe the cultural context of the surrounding works, while the QR codes invite visitors with Smartphones to access additional images, audio files, and videos. Curator of Interpretation, Anne Taylor, has created a web-based Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age app that will also be available and can be accessed both on mobile devices and home computers.

Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, is an art exhibition center dedicated to presenting the finest visual art from local, regional, U.S. and international sources in a program of changing exhibitions. The Frist Center's Martin ArtQuest Gallery (open until 5:30 p.m. each day) features interactive stations relating to Frist Center exhibitions. Gallery admission to the Frist Center is free for visitors 18 and younger and to Frist Center members. The Frist Center is open seven days a week: Mondays through Wednesdays, and Saturdays, 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Thursdays and Fridays, 10 a.m.–9 p.m. and Sundays, 1–5:30 p.m., with the Frist Center Café opening at noon.

Additional information is available by calling 615. 244.3340 or by visiting their website at www.fristcenter.org.