This is a sketch book and research week for me. I have a dragon puppet on the go, the next coot print is being designed and I am still mulling over my brief notes from Amsterdam. The Rijksmuseum was exceptionally wonderful and we only covered a small section of it. We are going back in September.
I particularly wanted to see some of the genre paintings and the calm cathedral interiors of Pieter Saenredam and Emanuel De Witte. etc. The calm atmosphere is created by the beautifully modulated colours and still figures. However I noticed there are often dogs in the frame, not all of whom are behaving as good church dogs should.
I made a few sketches and notes in the museum and then, back in the UK, spent an hour in the National Gallery looking at the Dutch Cathedral paintings there. Some brief research only shows that others have noticed the frolicking and occasionally urinating dogs, but as to why they are there I am not quite sure.
Rijksmuseum sketches
The dogs are often in the centre of the paintings, sometimes with an owner but sometimes just going about their own doggy business. Stand offs, playing, sniffing and just hanging about they add such a domestic and normal air to the scene.
The sketch at the top of the above page is from a fascinating detail in Pieter Saenredam’s painting “The Interior of the Buurkerk at Utrecht 1644” in the National Gallery. There is a boy teaching a dog to sit or beg and another figure contemplating some curious graffiti showing the the four sons of Aymon escaping on Bayard the magic horse who is able to change his size to accommodate the number of his riders. It’s all very curious and irreverent. Excellent.
National Gallery Sketches… I particularly like the dog looking up at the preacher
A watercolour of one of the dogs from the National Gallery paintings.
I am sure something will develop from these.
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