Glad I Asked the Question

A conversation that was as good as the art

I was in the Gallery of Honor in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam today - the most crowded room in the place, with people packed in, checking off their “I’ve seen it” boxes for Rembrandt’s Night Watch and a few lovely Vermeers.

Off to a side sat museum employee Natalie, next to a sign that said “Ask Me.” I was taking a minute out of the squash of crowds and so wandered over by her, trying to think up a question.

I asked her to tell me about something she thought it might be fun for me to know; something not in the guidebooks. She whipped out her iPad and showed me how the gallery looked before the most recent overhaul of the museum. It was all white walls and white ceilings with a complete lack of decoration, like a classic northern Protestant church. Apparently, before the whitewashing, the ceilings were colorfully decorated, and they decided to recreate it (peeling back to it was not feasible). The gallery’s walls were a darker-than-medium gray, and she said they got lighter as you went down to the bottom floors, with several shades of gray - but not the 50 from the books, she said with a laugh.

I asked her about her favorites. Nope, after 20 years working there she couldn’t choose because it would be like choosing a favorite child.

She turned the tables and asked me my favorites… and I said that I always make an effort to see the Vermeer paintings where ever I am. I love the immediacy in them, and I don’t care at all that he may have used a camera obscura to get the bones down. What he laid on the bones is worthy of all the accolades in my opinion. And his women are beautiful and mysterious without being gratuitously naked. We talked about The Love Letter, and how the people that made the Girl with the Pearl Earring movie used its composition, looking through dark halls into lit rooms, in several scenes.

I told her it was the first Vermeer work I learned about, in good ole Janson’s History of Art, and she said “ah yes, Janson, who didn’t put women painters in his books.”

Hmmm… a kindred spirit on that front.

Of late, the weight of patriarchal art history has left me, an avid art-lover, uninterested in experiencing so many classically hallowed works that the establishment would have me worship on their man-made pedestals. In short, I’m not enjoying museums like I once did, and I shared that with Natalie.

She then told me about a book she was reading: How to Suppress Women’s Writing, by Joanna Russ. And how Vasari’s Lives of the Artists (written during the Renaissance) originally included women artists, but they disappeared when it got translated to Dutch (and I imagine English too, but I’ll have to research that). I told her about Katy Hessel’s book The Story of Art Without Men, and showed her Hessel’s IG account @thegreatwomenartists (she has a great Substack too)

She told me that the Rijksmuseum was trying to get more women-made art on the walls, that they recognized the deficiency, and were working to correct it. But so much of that art was not revered over the years, so it was not collected, so it’s not owned by the major institutions. Not an easy fix, especially in hindsight.

But still, she said, she makes a point of showing the women painters to the groups of school children she leads, because the girls need to see they can be painters, and the boys need to see that painting belongs to more than just men.

I could have hugged her. Instead I thanked her for her time and her thoughts, and especially for her work with the children. She said we are all responsible for changing the stories, and thanked me too.

What a conversation. I’m SO glad I asked a question. Probably the best part of my trip.

It always amazes me that the human desire for connection shines through and it’s absolutely the best part of why I travel.