Rembrandt at The Ackland Museum

October 2019

On Friday, my mother came home and showed me a flyer she had seen about a Rembrandt exhibit at UNC Chapel Hill, and she asked me if I wanted to go see it. I immediately responded yes. I wanted to go view the exhibit because I had heard of Rembrandt, but did not know much about his artwork. The timing was pretty ironic, because my best friend had jokingly called me "Rembrandt Junior" a few days before, and I had told her that I really knew nothing about him. So, I was definitely curious about the opportunity to learn about his work.

On Sunday, my mom and I drove to Chapel Hill to visit the Ackland Musuem, where the Rembrandt pieces were located. We went on the last day of the exhibit, which was probably not a good idea. The room where the Rembrandt pieces were displayed was super packed with Art fanatics. I had just started looking at the pieces of artwork when a large tour group came up and began to surround me. I had to step away from the exhibit for several minutes, because I don't like crowds. For a while, I wandered around the Ackland Museum looking at realistic paintings of people from the 1800s. There were a lot of interesting pieces to see. They had paper, pencils, and clipboards in the museum so I took some time to sit and I was inspired to begin an original piece of artwork while I was there. I returned to the Rembrandt exhibit after the crowd left so that I could see the drawings up close. There were seven pieces of artwork, and my favorite was a drawing of a boat in a bay or harbor. I liked looking at the amazing details that Rembrandt created in this piece.

The experience made me wonder how Rembrandt's Art ended up at the Ackland Museum. I know that the pieces had to be expensive because they are extremely old. (The Ackland Museum was displaying his artwork in celebration of the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt's death.) I learned that a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill purchased the Art pieces at auction and donated them to the Auckland museum.

Overall, going to see the Rembrandt exhibit was both interesting and overwhelming. I enjoyed visiting the Ackland Museum and seeing the other Art displayed there, in addition to being able to see the Rembrandt pieces up close.