Writing Assignment 2 The Collector’s Choice

The Collectors Choice
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The Collectors Choice
I have been an art enthusiast for as long as I remember partly because my late father was a talented artist and painter. Our house was always well adorned with eye-catching art pieces, and I grew up attending art galleries where my father went to showcase and sell his artworks. Unfortunately, I was not blessed with even half of my father’s abilities in artistry and painting, and therefore, I have had to settle to collecting elegant artworks from various talented painters around the world. Over the recent past, I have been particularly fascinated with some 17th-century Dutch art that focused not only on the images of women but also on the structure of the Dutch society. Two paintings specifically captured my imagination so much that I chose to purchase them and put them up on either side of my living room. One of these paintings was done by Gerard ter Borch and depicts an image of a woman washing her hands. The other painting is a masterpiece by Gabriel Metsu portraying a young woman composing music. In addition to the perfect detailing and elegance witnessed in both paintings, they also denote the housewifery roles and the subordinate position of Dutch women in that society during that period.
Gerard ter Borch’s painting showing a lady washing her hands encompasses many aspects and themes that primarily captured my thoughts and endeared me to it. The woman is beautifully dressed in a silver-grey satin dress and is getting her hands washed by a maidservant in a black dress using a silver jug. Jewelry, a mirror, and an extinguished candle can be seen from the background. A white and brown pet dog is also seen obediently sited underneath the woman’s feet. The first thing that appealed to me about the painting was the way Gerard ter Borch managed to fuse and place all the images without crowding them considering the size of the room. I was also drawn to the usage of the hand washing gesture which was used metaphorically in most of the 17th-century art and literature to denote purity and innocence. The Dutch people, who have practiced Christianity for centuries, compare and relate hand washing to some of the Christian religious customs. For instance, biblically an individual is considered pure and free of sin when they get baptized by being submerged in water. It is also recorded that Pontius Pilate washed his hands to denote his innocence. In that regard, the gesture of hand washing seen in the painting symbolizes the woman’s chastity and her desire to lead a good life free from sin or the worldly pleasures. The woman’s expensive satin gown and the jewelry on her well-spread bed give the indication that she was a wealthy woman, but unlike other powerful women, she was kind and treated her maidservant humanely.[Kettering, Alice McNeil. Looking At Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art. New York (N.Y.) [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1997. pp. 101.] [Honig, Elizabeth Alice. “The Space Of Gender In Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting.” Looking At Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art. New York (N.Y.) [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1997. pp. 193.]
The other thing that attracted me to the painting of the woman was...