Going Dutch

Cathy Healy’s post on her favorite Amsterdam hotel reminded me of my favorite Dutch photographer, Jurjen Drenth, whose work has appeared in the Dutch edition of Traveler. I discovered him while fact-checking a story about Delft a while back. When he’s not doing his commercial photography, Drenth hunts down the locations of famous paintings of the Dutch masters, and reproduces them, with a modern twist, in his photographs. On his website, Drenth explains that he “concentrates on the almost forgotten or hidden parts of Dutch culture.” The photo above is take from his Vermeer series, and shows some of what’s left of Vermeer’s View of Delft landscape. 

Drenth also reproduces Dutch landscapes and interiors from the paintings of Van Gogh and Rembrandt. If you want to see the real Dutch masters, note that the main part of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is closed for renovation until 2010, but a wing of the musuem remains open, with highlights from the permanent collection. It will not, however, include this Photoshopped portrait of Marge Simpson as The Girl With the Pearl Earring.