In reviewing the exhibition currently at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., Pride of Place: Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age, Blacke Gopnik writes in his Washington Post article The ‘Golden’ Compass that contemporary viewers may not know how to correctly look at classic Dutch landscapes and cityscapes.

He suggests that this is more than having a background knowledge of the artists or particular paintings, and in fact has to do with physical proximity to the painting, a reference to a kind of “sweet spot” from which the painting was intended to be seen, particularly in terms of being close enough to the image for it to fill a significant part of your visual field; but also, in some cases, requiring a vantage point from one side or the other.

A case in point is Daniel Vosmaer’s Delft from an Imaginary Loggia (image above, top), which looks “off” at first, but apparently resolves into a strikingly naturalistic scene when viewed from a position close to the bottom left of the painting. Some are more natural seeming in appearance when seen from a distance or in reproduction, like Adriaensz Berckheyde’s The Grote or St. Bavokerk in Haarlem (image above, bottom), but still evidently reveal their full force only when seen up close.

Gopnik goes on to suggest that over half the paintings in the show, and many other Dutch cityscapes, interiors and even still lifes, are meant to respond to an off-center point of view.

It’s a fascinating idea, and one I hope to put to the test by traveling to see the show.

When I first looked at the slide show in the Post of images from the exhibition, I was ready to jump in the car and drive down, because it looked as if Vermeer’s beautiful View of Delft (larger image here) was among the paintings on exhibit. I saw this amazing work when it was at the wonderfully extensive Johannes Vermeer exhibition at the National Gallery back in 1995, and I have been dying to see it again since. Unfortunately, that work was only part of the current exhibition in its other venue, the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, which is home to the painting. Apparently the curators at the Maruitshuis felt it was too dangerous to allow the large painting to make the trans-Atlantic voyage again, as explained here.

Still, the current exhibit of Dutch cityscapes, from the height of their glory, should be something to see indeed. The exhibition contains 48 paintings by over 40 Dutch masters, including Gerrit Berckheyde, Aelbert Cuyp, Jan van Goyen, Jan van der Heyden, Pieter de Hooch, Hendrick Vroom, Pieter Saenredam, and Jan Steen; and is supplemented with maps, atlases, illustrated books and prints.

Pride of Place: Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age is on display at the National Gallery in Washington until May 3, 2009.

The results are in for The New Yorker’s 2009 Eustace Tilley Contest. See my recent post about the 2009 Eustace Tilley Contest for an explanation.

You can view the 12 winners as a slide show, or as thumbnails. You can also view all 2009 entries. You can see the original Eustace from the cover of the first issue of The New Yorker here.

I love the Watchmen graphic novel cover parody by Marcus Thiele (above, center, larger version here).

You can also view the 2008 winners (thumbnails) or all 2008 entries (on Flickr).

Just for fun, I actually entered this year (image at left, larger version here).

My entry didn’t make the cut, but it was fun to draw; even though, with my usual insane schedule, I was working on it at the last minute (literally — I submitted it one minute before the midnight deadline); and for someone who hardly ever posts my own work on this blog, here I am doing it twice in a row.

It’s fun to look through the whole range of entries, particularly if you saw last years’, and compare some of pop culture influences relevant to the times (lots of iPhones, financial woes and Obama images this year).

See also my post on last year’s contest, The Many Faces of Eustace Tilley.

(Image at top, left to right: David Leonard, Marcus Thiele, David Cook, Adam Koford, Charlene Chua, Eric Almendral)

OK, I’ll explain what I mean by that.

I’ve long been an admirer of Rembrandt’s drawings, particularly those done in reed pen, bistre ink and wash. (Bistre ink is made by boiling wood soot, often taken from wood-buring chimneys, in water. It produces as yellow-brown, transparent ink that was not favored for writing, but is well suited to drawings with washes.)

In attempting to emulate Rembrandt’s sketching methods (and those of other master ink and wash draughtsmen), I’ve even made my own reed pens (moderately successfully) and bistre ink (unsuccessfully); but eventually settled on modern tools, a steel nibbed pen like a Hunt/Speedball 108 and washes of modern sepia-colored drawing inks, or other brown or red-brown inks (as opposed to real cuttlefish sepia, which can be problematic).

There are more interesting drawing inks appearing in recent years, like Walnut Ink and Noodler’s Drawing Inks, but I haven’t tried them yet.

So for a while I was carrying around a sketching kit of a sketchpad, pen holders and points, a bottle of ink, a bottle of wash, a watercolor brush, rinsing water and a wiping cloth. Perhaps comparable to what the old guys carried around, but more awkward than a modern portable pocket watercolor kit.

I wanted something I could stick in my pocket and have with me to sketch at a whim, without the mess and fuss, but I still wanted to sketch in brown line and wash.

After trying various tools, I settled on a couple of Sakura Pigma Micron markers with sepia colored (brown) ink in different sizes, usually 05 and 005, and a Tombow Dual Brush-Pen, “Tan”, #942 (many of the other colors in these markers are too dark to be used for washes).

The Pigma Microns are water-fast once dry, which is almost immediately. I can wash over them at will with the Tombow, which is light enough for relatively light washes, and can be built up a bit with repeated passages. The Pigma Microns can also be used over the wash which results in an interesting bit of bleed and rough line.

The result is a reasonable approximation of ink and wash, as in my drawing below (larger version here), and makes for a simple, easy to carry, no-mess sketch kit that lets me draw in ink and “wash” wherever I go (though the Tombow Brush-Pen is a bit big to casually carry in a pocket).

(BTW, I know I’ve got a lot of nerve posting one of my own drawings with a Rembrandt, but I’ve learned over time how horribly counter-productive it is to be intimidated by others’ work; so I refuse to be intimidated even by the great masters. Inspired, yes, intimidated, no.)

For a nice off-white suface, on which the brown ink lines and washes look great, I use Strathmore Series #400 sketchpads. They have a nice paper with a slight tooth that takes light washes well, and are slim enough at 24 sheets to slip into a pocket or case easily. (I also use Moleskine Cahier softbound sketchbooks, which are even thinner, about the size and appearance of a U.S. passport.)

While I’m at it, I’ll recommend a good book on pen and ink drawing: Rendering in Pen and Ink by Arthur L. Guptill and Susan E. Meyer, and a nice inexpensive book on Rembrandt’s drawings in color (which really makes a difference) is Rembrandt Drawings: 116 Masterpieces in Original Color from Dover Books.

You can also look for Rembrandt drawings in color on the terrific web site Rembrandt van Rijn: Life and Work (see my post on author Jonathan Janson, the Rembrandt site, and the related site, Essential Vermeer).

Here is a larger version of the Rembrandt drawing at the top of the article, and another Rembrandt ink and wash drawing that I just love.

There are other variations on portable ink and wash drawing, of course; a nice fountain pen with waterproof ink and a Niji Waterbrush, in which you could carry your own mixture of wash, would be more flexible, but a bit more trouble.

I’ve been happy though, with the portability and flexibility of my “Pocket Rembrandt”, and the wonderful character halfway between drawing and painting produced when rendering with washes. If you haven’t tried it, pick up a “Pocket Rembrandt” kit and head for the marshes.