Visited the Groninger Museum (www.groningermuseum.nl) way up in the North yesterday to see the Russia’s Unknown Orient exhibition. From a photographer’s point of view not much to be seen here. Personally, I’m a big fan of 17th century masters. Particularly when it concerns the style of clair-obscur (or chiaroscuro in Italian) with painters such as Rembrandt and Caravaggio. Hardly anything in this style at this exhibition. Except for the painting below by Stanislav Chlebovski who painted it somewhere around 1870. I must say I was impressed by the way the light was handled and the level of detail of the overall painting.
There were works on display where other painters clearly tried to apply a clair-obscur look, but simply failed. Parts were lit that should have been shadows. Anyway, enough about this exhibition. As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, I like to link painting styles and techniques to photography, especially with portraits. Therefore, I was more than pleasantly surprised to find a whole section where they have done just that with their own collection. An entire floor dedicated to painted and photographed portraits. One big candystore! Two photographs from Erwin Olaf of a male model photographed in a sort of oval frame. Next to it were painted portraits in a real oval frame. That kind of work. What even impressed me more were three really beautiful portraits of female models (or should I say three portraits of beautiful female models) by Dutch photographer Inez van Lamsweerde and her partner Vinoodh Matadin next to three painted portraits by Jan Jansz. de Stomme who made these around 1650.
Completely different styles and poses, of course. Still impressive to see three female models painted in the 17th century and three models photographed roughly about 300 years later. Hanging next to each other on the same wall. The paintings in colour, the photo’s in black and white. The paintings with models 3/4 in length, the photo’s with head and shoulder shots. The actual size of the photo’s is in the 1m x 1.5m range somewhere, by the way.
The Groninger Museum has quite a large number of photographs from Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin in its collection. So, if you happen to be in Groningen and if you’re interested in the link between painting and photography, I certainly recommend a visit. Unfortunately, the museum is not part of Google’s Art Project yet…