The Netherlands are still reverberating in my imagination since my recent trip. And who of the Dutch is apt to reverberate most of all? Rembrandt. This is the Frick Collection’s Rembrandt Self-Portrait. Paintings bought during Henry Clay Frick’s lifetime (1849-1919) are not allowed to leave the Collection. The 1658 self-portrait was bought in 1906. I asked an artist friend about the staff that Rembrandt is holding in his left hand. Frank Galuszka, an artist, wrote me that it was a mahlstick. To quote Frank, ” I have used a mahlstick – I bought one at Winsor & Newton in London more than forty years ago and still use it, though not frequently, since I feel like I need three hands to paint as it is and handling a mahlstick would require a fourth! It was awkward to bring on the plane because the stick-part was bamboo. Now they have them unscrewing into sections. The head of the maul/mahl stick was chamois. More than you need to know, but who knows it could turn up as a murder weapon in your next book! (Readers, take note!)

It was so important to Rembrandt because he used straight linseed oil as a medium (the historian-conservators tell us this- I didn’t believe it at first) and that means his paintings would stay wet for a long time. This makes his terrific blending possible through all the varying stages of resistance as the paint sets up, probably a week or more. each stage of resistance offers unique possibilities, giving a dimension to the possibilities of paint-handling in painting.”

Viisiting the Reiksmuseum and going to the Wardens of the Amsterdams Guild on the fourth floor (?) of the Rijksmuseum was cosy, as if we were all squished together into the 17th century. Rembrandt was an interior painter, mostly. Even the Polish Rider, painted in 1655, doesn’t dwell on the details of nature. None of Vermeer’s lovely cityscapes or opened windows.

Back to Frank Galuszka: “I have just finished a completely Dutch painting that I am happy with. The Dutch had (procedural) secrets for everything, and I think these secrets are still unknown. I am absorbed working out an understanding of how they conceptualized painting certain things, such as clouds. Very exciting!”

A toast to the British Parliament and its recognition of the Palestinan state.