Dutch painter Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) was exposed to painting by his father and an eminent printmaker while a youth. After formal training in the glaziers' guild of Leiden, The Netherlands, he apprenticed in the studio of painter, engraver and draftsman Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) for six years. The master departed Leiden in 1631 and his pupil, Dou, soon founded the fijnschilders ("fine painters"). This group of artists produced small and highly polished compositions characterized by precise attention to minuscule and accessory details.
Rembrandt's influence on Dou subsided and the mature Leiden artist became known for his expertise in painting the effects of artificial light. Many of Dou's works demonstrate his thorough familiarity with chiaroscuro (the sharp contrast between light and dark to create a painting's dramatic effect) used by Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) and Rembrandt. This is evident in the artist's Astronomer by Candlelight (late 1650s). Alone at night in his dark study, the scholar's face, hourglass, treatise, beaker and celestial globe are rendered naturalistically and illuminated by the flame of one single candle held in his right hand. The astronomer intently examines a handwritten book while determining the distance between two heavenly bodies on his globe. Another painting by Dou, similar in style and technique to the Getty Museum's masterpiece, is A Dentist by Candlelight (1660-65) in the Kimbell Art Museum. The two are worth comparing.
"Radiant Darkness: The Art of Nocturnal Light" is on view from April 24 through July 22, 2007 at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Telephone: 310-440-7330; Website). The museum is open Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Friday and Saturday 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Admission is free. Parking costs $8.00.
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From your Guide: Stan Parchin, Senior Correspondent for Museums and Special Exhibitions, is a specialist in ancient, late-medieval and Renaissance art and history, and a regular contributor to About Art History. You may read all of his Special Exhibition and Catalogue Reviews here.